B8/Ch1: I HAVE SAVED YOU

Sebastian & Evie

In a darkened room in a secret place, a man rocked his 3-year-old baby boy to sleep in his arms. The old wood of the chair creaked like aching bones as a fire to his left burned and warmed his cold skin. The echoing of the wind on the large windowpane easily pierced through the room’s stone walls like banshees crying in the dark.  

The boy was wrapped in warm white wool blanket. He slept soundly unbothered by the coldness of his father's skin or the noise of ice cold wind. He was used to the harsh weather from where he came. 

In the glass of a mirror a reflectionless man held his child tightly — it was Sebastian Lord and his son Gabriel.  

Sebastian had succeeded in taking back his family, taking them back and taking them far, far away from Welshport, to another rocky shoreline place called Goodwick, in Scottland. 

***THREE MONTHS EARLIER***

The cold, dark cliffside overlooking the black sea of the Atlantic where waves bashed the equally as black rocks hundreds of feet below. A spinning chaotic beam of light from the Welshport Lighthouse illuminated the face of Johnathon DeViana, desperate from relief of his miserable existence contemplated meeting his maker at the bottom of that cliff -- only to be interrupted by his younger Uncle Sebastian Lord, frozen in his youth by vampirism, and convinced to keep himself alive.

In that conversation, Johnathon knew, his life was indeed valuable, at least to Sebastian who sincerely did not want Johnathon to take his own life, not for Jacqueline anyway. 

In the conversation that saved his life, Johnathon wondered, what would Sebastian do next?

"And you? What'll you do? You can't haunt this world forever as you are." Johnathon added.

Sebastian was confused. "I don't know. I'd like to get my family back." He said.

Johnathon grinned; a cruel icy wind blew over them both. "That's impossible." 

Sebastian didn't know how to answer his younger uncle, a man on the verge of madness. He could tell there was a still a streak of cruelty in him, but the next thing out of Johnathon's mouth was surprising. 

An idea, something he once read about but then a friend of his from his time in Philadelphia confirmed it was real. A place so strange and out there it could only be written in fiction; a novel by Braum Stoker even. 

"I've heard of a place, in Europe.” Johnathon revealed in a quiet voice to his nephew. “A place you can go and be there safely. I've never told a soul about it; in fact I wasn’t even sure it was real.” 

Sebastian moved closer, he narrowed his eyes as the wind blew colder and through his thick dark blond hair. 

Johnathon continued with tears in his eyes realizing the end of a very long tug of war with Sebastian was coming to an end.  “It's a place a friend of mine told me was real, he’s there now even. I'll write him for you. I’ll set you up and tell him about you. You can be safe there. Forever." Johnathon said.

***PRESENT DAY, SCOTLAND***

It had been done. 

Sebastian, now free of the chains of Welshport, sat in the rocking chair with his beloved Gabriel. Asleep. Innocent, like an angel in the dark. His father, looking down on him with the most glowing of expressions: pride, adoration, hope. Yes -- there was still hope in the shadowy place he'd taken his family. 

Across from the father and son, in a bed built for royalty overflowing with pillows and blankets and sheets as soft as clouds, was the sleeping Evie Jordan-Lord. She had been asleep for the last two nights since they boarded the ship set for some mysterious place; right after her abduction. 

Then, finally, she stirred. 

Sebastian carefully moved the baby over to a crib and laid him down with ease. His strong sculpted arms peeking through his crisp white shirt with the sleeves rolled up, reached down like giant cranes into the billowy crib where sleeping Gabriel would stay the night. 

Evie began to murmur incoherently as she began to wake. Then, her eyes opened, everything was blurry. The room seemed to be as dark as the coffin she once found herself in, buried alive. That memory, the claustrophobic sense chocking at her in the dark shocked her awake. She gasped for air and reached for her throat that oddly ached on the left side 

The flickering of the hearth was like a beacon for her scanning blurry eyes. Her heart beat felt slow, her mind a dizzying frenzy of panic not knowing where she was, where her child was and what had happened to her. 

"Evie?" Sebastian said softly. "Are you ok?" 

Hearing his voice, Evie leaned forward to get a better look. Her eyes suddenly fixed on the man she once loved but could not be with -- would not be with, not this way, not by kidnapping her and their child. To her horror he had done it.

"What --- what have you done?" She said in a low voice, her arms locking around her knees. "Where are we?" She then reached for her aching neck again; a bandage marked two tiny holes left by Sebastian's vampire grin. "Sebastian," Evie began again her voice filled with intensity and tears in her eyes as the memory of his fangs sinking into her flesh came back "What. Have. You. Done. TO ME!"

Sebastian's head tilted, realizing she was seeing everything that had happened as a negative thing. He had only wanted to be with this family free of the prying eyes of his family and the town that hunted him. 

He had taken Johnathon's advice, found the man Johnathon had known from his travels in Europe and found a place safe for creatures like Sebastian. His family was now on safe in this sanctuary where they could eventually live out the rest of their lives -- one way or another.

The answer to Evie's question was so simple. Sebastian moved over and sat on the edge of Evie's bed -- their bed-- and reached over and patted her cold foot as the wind continued to chill the air around the  in the locked stone bedroom with windows frosted over. Sebastian scooted over closer to her with their child in his arms. 

He smiled, a cold grin she did not find reassuring and even worse his expression chilled her more that the weather itself.

He said:
"I've saved you."  

****

Matthew with the Bragas: Filipe & Fatima

As the night carried on over the sea back to the village of Welshport an autumn day was welcomed with a bright butter yellow sun in the sky. The beech tress of Maine had already changed to their warm yellows and orange color of leaves. The crisp air cooled the summer away into memory. 

In the village, Matthew Winterborn sat in a small table with Filipe Braga in the home of Filipe's mother Fatima who had taken in her son and his family after the horrific events of the witch trial. Matthew was in a state of panic and needed advice.

Evie was gone. Matthew had overheard Sebatian tell her he wanted to take his family away. 

But the fact Matthew had seen Sebastian, or at least Sebastian's dark shadow, lurking into Churchill's home left Matthew in a horribly worried state, especially after reading Baxter's headline that Churchill was dead.

For his part, Filipe's mind could deduce all of the same conclusion Matthew had come up with, but he wanted no part in any of it. 

As Fatima brought over coffee for the two men to drink, Matthew laid out his case.

"All I want is to make sure Evie is ok, I know in my heart that she would never leave like this without saying goodbye to her family." Matthew noted.

"That's true, that doesn't seem like her at all, but there is the fact that so much has gone on that maybe she wanted to make a clean break too. Evie and Sebastian have had a long, long history of terrible events happen to them. There have always been forces mounting against them being together. Maybe they wanted to start fresh without anyone trying to convince them otherwise. Matthew, you yourself know how traumatizing the last few months have been. Doesn't it seem likely that they would have wanted it this way, on their own terms?" Filipe wondered.

Fatima lifted a brow -- not convinced of her son's words but said nothing. She turned to Charlotte who was watching over baby Caleb while Mary rested. The young heiress leaned up against the frame of the garden door that led back into the house. She felt the same as Fatima.

Matthew leaned in. His eyes intense with concern "No." He said with a calm voice. "It absolutely does not seem likely. She would never, ever not say goodbye to her brother and mother. She's taken Gabriel, how could she not allow him to say his goodbyes either?" 

"It's not Evangelina, no." Fatima whispered, as she went back into the house with Charlotte. 

"Listen Filipe, what I saw the night Churchill died wasn't normal. Sebastian had every reason to kill him, I don't care what that article says. Added to the fact of what I overheard him say at the beach house, it all makes sense, to me at least. He killed Churchill went to the beach house and stole his family away in the night. I know it in my heart, Filipe, I think she's in danger." 

"How would you even find her?" Filipe wondered.

Matthew sat back in his chair, there -- that was the part Matthew had the most trouble with. He had no idea where to start looking. They could be literally anywhere on earth far, far away from the rocky Maine coastline and the shores of Welshport Island. 

Filipe saw the anguish in Matthew's face, it was as if someone had taken his heart and squeezed all of the life out of it in front of his own eyes. 

"If Evie is in trouble," Filipe began before Matthew interrupted.

"She is. I will go to my grave saying that she is in trouble anytime Sebastian is involved." 

"Then she'll find a way to get a message to you." Filipe Continued. "She's very resourceful and a survivor, if she's in trouble she wont allow herself to say in trouble, not if she has Gabriel with her." Filipe added.

Matthew nodded, he knew it was true. He knew that Evie wouldn't just allow herself to be taken away by anyone, not even Sebastian. He took a breath, sipped some more coffee, and looked out over into the lush green of Fatima's gardens. The thick bushes of white hydrangeas had bloomed; their fresh scent wafted over to Matthew almost like a ghost slowly creeping around the garden table make it's presence known. 

"I just feel so alone now." Matthew said, his now blurry with tears gaze still locked on the hydrangeas. "I did everything I could to protect her, to protect Gabriel and it just suddenly is all gone. I have no one. My sister is gone. My whole family -- all my people. It's just me." 

"Matt, you have us, your friends. Lucas too. We're all here for you." Filipe said. 

Then an idea sprang into Matthew's mind. He turned his head from the flowers and blurted out: "MARY!"

Filipe looked confused. 

"Maybe Mary or Charlotte! Maybe they can do something to help me find them. They were able to find you when you were here recovering from the wolf. Couldn't they help me, even if it were just one time. If they could get me any information I could, I could find them! I could save them!" Matthew added.

Filipe shook his head. "No. Matthew, I can't let you ask them." His voice lowered as they were outdoors. "Not after everything they've survived during the trial. Mary could have been burned at the stake. If anyone, anyone at all, were to find out they were using their powers again or that they even had them to begin with after we've all denied and lied and covered for them, it could spell disaster. We've all, including you, have gone through too much to go back now into that world." 

"I'm begging you." Matthew said. "When Mary wakes from her nap, would you ask her opinion?" 

"You can't ask me to do that, Matt. I just can't. Mary would help you, I know she would. Charlotte too but their all I have, if they were to be discovered and something happen again taking them from me, I wouldn't know what to do. You understand, don't you?" 

Matthew did understand. He knew the dangerous world they lived in. He saw it first hand as he too was accused of being a witch, wrongfully at that. He felt selfish for even asking and nodded along with Filipe agreeing he wouldn't put Mary or worse, Charlotte, in that position. He finished it coffee and stood up from the table. Filipe too. They gave each other quick hug goodbye as Matthew decided to take himself to the docks and get things settled for a possible fishing trip.

Work. Work always soothed his searching mind. 

As he walked through the house and said goodbye to Fatima and little Caleb in her arms, he passed 14 year old Charlotte who was in the parlor reading. She set her book down on the sofa and carefully walked out behind Matthew without anyone seeing. She dashed across the front cobblestones of the front yard and yanked on Matthew's sleeve. 

Startled by her he turned quickly. His heart skipped at beat.

"I'm sorry, I just wanted to say something before you left." Charlotte said in a whisper as she looked around to see if they were being watched. 

"What is it?"

"Sebastian and I have a connection. We've always had one, being cousins, but there's more. As I've grown and my ---" she lowered her voice even more -- "powers have intensified, our lock has been unbreakable. Sometimes, I can almost see what he's thinking, but now always." She revealed.

"Do you know if he's taken Evie? And where?" Matthew asked.

"Sometimes he blocks me, he's gotten used to us being so connected that he's learned how to lock me out, but not always. Quickly, hold my hands." 

Matthew did as he was told.

She took hold of his hands, the calluses of a sailor scratching her soft palms. She looked around to be sure the coast was clear then closed her eyes. A breeze lifted her soft blond hair slightly into the air from around her face. Her eye lids shifted back and forth with her eye sliding underneath as if she were reading with her eyes closed. There was light and flashes of something -- the lighthouse! A ship in the dark. A ship with a name she could not read. Then intense waves, waves the reached the ship's deck that leaked into down, down into its body. Under all of the hidden things in the ship's hull three secret passengers: Sebastian, Evie and little Gabriel. 

"He's taken her." Charlotte whispered. "I see her asleep. He's awake. With little Gabriel. A ship has set off. East ... but I don't know where." 

"Can you see anything? Any clue as to where they might have gone?" Matthew questioned.

Charlotte searched the cargo hold where Sebastian was hiding his family. Crates and boxes and more crates. She saw writing on one of the crates that read ESCOCSIA. 

"Escosia? Scottland?" Charlotte said as her eyes opened. "I think he's taken her to Scottland." 

Matthew smiled, big and wide and scooped Charlotte up into a hug. She giggled as he set her down. He put both hands around her cheeks. 

"I will forever be grateful." 

She smiled and he dashed off down the street with the new lead on where Sebastian had taken Evie and Gabriel.

"Menina. You shouldn't have done that." Fatima said from the doorway, using the Portuguese word for girl. "Mateus will put himself in danger for Evangelina and now you may be responsible for that." 

Charlotte frowned "I love Sebastian, but I don't think taking his family away like that wasn't right. Evie deserves a say in her own life, don't you agree?

Fatima sighed agreeing with Charlotte but unwilling to give in for the sake of the argument. 

"I wanted to help her and Gabriel. Matthew is strong. He loves Evie. He respects her. I just want everyone to be where they want to be. Not where they are being forced to be." 

"You speak with wisdom beyond your 14 years, menina." Fatima noted. "I will give you that." 

"I know what it's like to be taken and held in a place against your will and the people you love kept from you all your life. My own father did it to me, it's not what I want for Evie or Gabriel, that's all." The young Lord heiress said.

Fatima crossed her arms and lifted a brow; in a way she was very happy to see Charlotte being so independent with her powers and thoughts. She was using them both for some good instead of squandering them on luxuries and parlor tricks, but she also saw the drawback of it. There would be a price to pay by intervening in fate. There always was. 

Fatima knew Charlotte may have sent Matthew to his demise. Sebastian would not free Evie without a bloody, deathly fight. 

****

Matthew receives visitors 

Later that after noon, walking down the cobblestone street of inner Welshport Village, a woman with long dark hair and dressed in thick shawl with intricate woven patterns on the back and tassels tied together in fine braids, walked towards Matthew Winterborn's apartment building. She knew this place, this town. She knew it's history, it's story.

It was her story too. It was a apart of her life for many years before she was swifty moved out for her own safety when she was just 8 years old. 

As she walked towards the front door of the building, she paused when she saw three people there before her. 

Aurora Ashby-Jordan, Nikolas Jordan and Lucas Mural had arrived before the woman to come and see Matthew at virtually the same time. They come to check on him after the realization Evie and Gabriel had left Sebastian. 

As the woman waited patiently outside for her turn, the group walked up the single flight of indoor stairs that lead up to the single apartment and knocked on his door. It was only a flash of minutes before Matthew opened to see his friends standing there with worried looks on their faces. Matthew smiled, touched that they'd be so concerned for him. He welcomed them and stood aside allowing them in.

"Have you eaten?" Aurora asked, always the concerned mother. "You shouldn't neglect taking care of yourself." 

Matthew smirked. "Thank you Mrs. Jordan, I have, yes...I'm ok." 

"We just worry for you." Lucas added. "Evie leaving with Sebastian was a shock to us all, I can't imagine how you're feeling." 

Matthew's jaw clenched at the idea that Evie would have chosen to leave with Sebastian after what she told them both, that she was not going to choose between them anymore, that she wanted to focus on Gabriel, raise him and then decide what she wanted to do in the romantic realm. 

"I admit, having her write a simple letter hurts." Nik added. "It's a bit rushed and unlike her, but considering the hell you've all been through with the trial, I can also see that they'd want to leave without much fanfare. 

Aurora sighed, the note bothered her too. "It wasn't something I expected from her either." She noted.

"So why do you believe it?" Matthew replied quickly. 

They all turned to him; Nik narrowed his eyes "You don't?" He said, but in the tone of Nik's voice, Matthew could tell that Nik perhaps didn't believe it either. 

"Evie wouldn't just choose to leave like this, you yourselves said it and I for one have no intent on ever believing that she thought being with Sebastian was the best thing for her and for Gabriel." Matthew replied. 

Aurora, Nik and Lucas looked at each other. Matthew was saying what they were thinking but they had no way of knowing the truth and in reality, they were too frightened to even imagine Sebastian kidnapping two people they loved. 

Aurora then looked over to a side table near the hallway and saw Matthew's seabag packed to it's rim with. 

"Is that what I think it is?" She said, everyone followed her eyes. "Are you leaving?"

Matthew took a breath to think. His journey to where ever Sebastian may be holding Evie was already too dangerous, he didn't want anyone to go with him, follow him or worse, talk him out of it.

"Yes. He replied. "I need time. I need time away to think." He lied.

Aurora narrowed her eyes, her motherly instinct was sure he wasn't telling the truth, and although she worried about Evie and Gabriel she wanted nothing more than for them to be safe. 

"Matthew, we care about you very much." Aurora said. "And I think you should go-- find what you need to find -- and return to us -- safe." She said with a slight hidden message in her words.

Nik was less obvious "Are you going after them?" He asked point blank. 

Matthew shook his head, again trying to keep them out of danger and trying to go with him.

"I'm not." he lied again. "She's made her choice, if we are to believe her letter and I have to live with that. It doesn't sit well with me, but what can I do? I don't know where she went, I don't know where I can find them, or who could tell me where they went. They've virtually vanished. It is what it is. My heart is broken, but I have to live with it now."

Aurora sighed, hoping Matthew's words would satisfy her son Nikolas.

"But what if she..." Lucas began before Aurora interrupted.

"We should let Matthew do what Matthew wants to do." She said. "We won't stop you from finding what you need to find, Matthew. When you come home you know you have us here for you. We love you." She said.

"But..." Lucas began. 

"Lucas, this is Matthew's choice. he's going to go where he needs to go to find himself." Aurora said. 

"Right." Nik replied, picking up what his mother was doing. "This is Matthew's choice." 

Lucas felt confused but could tell the Jordan's were speaking in a sort of code, perhaps a code only they understood. 

They each hugged Matthew goodbye and wished him a good voyage to wherever he needed to go. Lucas still confused continued on his way out of Matthew's apartment but before he left he turned back to his friend, a friend that he came to see as a brother, someone he got to know when Matthew had no memories of Welshport, of his life here -- of Evie. Matthew held such a special place in Lucas' heart -- he brought him to America, helped him find his way through the world which led him to so much happiness with Lear. This goodbye felt strangely final. 

"I'm going to miss you." Lucas said, as the Jordan's waiting just outside the door.

Matthew smiled, tears in his eyes "This isn't forever." He said to his friend.

Lucas smiled back, unsure if that was true in his heart "I hope to believe that soon. In Portuguese, we said saudade, its a feeling of longing, and a sense of sorrow of something we are missing. I will feel saudade when I think of you Matthew, my friend. I hope you come home soon." 

Matthew's lower lip quivered, he quickly rushed over and hugged Lucas goodbye one more time. Like the Jordans, Lucas had been family when Matthew had no family. And for now, they'd all just pretend to go along with Matthew's vague answer on his plans for the future. 

As the trio of Matthew's friends exited his apartment retracing their way down the staircase, the woman who watched outside waited enough time for them to vanish back into town before she herself went up to Matthew's apartment. 

She hesitated at the door. She took a breath. It had been years since they'd seen each other, yet she had no doubt he'd recognize her. 

She knocked. 

Matthew, fiddling with final things to put inside his bag to leave, thought perhaps his friends had returned, forgetting to say something or perhaps needed something else. 

Matthew opened the door. The light of the sun had seeped through the windows of the inside staircase and lit the stairwell causing a glow, to backlight the woman standing in front of Matthew as she were surrounded in a warm halo. 

"Is it you... is it really you????" He asked her. 

She smiled, so happy that he recognized her. 

"It is." She said. "It's really me." 

***SCOTLAND***

Cyfrinach Castle, Goodwick, Scotland 

As Evie did her best to figure out where Sebastian and taken her and their child, she felt the cold breath of something wash the back of her neck like an ice-cold ocean wave. Something was watching her in the room with Sebastian and their sleeping child. 

Eyes she could not find. Eyes she could not connect with.

This place was a world rife with spirits who lurked in every corner. Every shadow had a face that could not be seen. Every deathly howl of the wind was warning from behind the veil. 

Evie had never felt this power so strongly before. It was as if Welshport had become a living creature, hungry for something to devour and Sebastian offered them up on a silver platter allowing the beast to swallow them whole. 

What Evie was feeling wasn't her imagination. It was real. It was alive, but not the way she was alive.

Evie's eyes scanned the room searching for something to tell here where she was or a way out. 

But there was nothing. She was trapped. 

The eyes she felt on her slept now, in a bed far from the place she was held captive. The creature, old, centuries old, needed her to live. Needed her child to live. The Lords had come to this Scottish world of secrets and darkness thanks to the connection Johnathon DeViana had with one that dwelled within the same walls. 

An Ironic connection that even Evie could never have imagined.  

Here, was an empire built on something sinister that thrived and fed on the malevolence and weakness of the soul. A mystical man his beard long and gray cared for an ailing creature in a bed built for royalty. Swaddled and draped in red thick wools and the creature, born centuries before, lie there with labored breathing, his body skin and bone. 

The creature was bathed by the mystical man with the beard with a crimson liquid, thicker than water. The watched the creature in the bed absorb the liquid through it's paper-thin skin. This ritual was observed by a woman, veiled in black lace sitting on a red velvet loveseat giving her an appearance of a black blur only her pale white hands visible to the eye.

The creature she watched the mystical man bathe, was the shape of what was once a man; a ruler of those like it and ruled from its death bed awaiting some kind of miracle; a prophecy that was now closer to come true than he ever could have dreamed. The prophecy of a mixling child born of a mortal and a vampire -- was now sleeping only two floors away.

Cyfrinach Castle was a place where the living were the dead and the dead were the living A cross-section of where the veil between two worlds was as thin as air. It was a fortress where all could be lost if the one man they followed could vanquished without the precious lifeforce of the mixling. Gabriel.

Here, hope was tainted by a violence in the form of blood and not everyone would leave alive. 

Only daylight could save the lucky. 

B7/Ch18: EVERYONE'S GOT SECRETS

The Bragas gather 

In Fatima Braga's home in the village, a long-awaited reunion was finally happening. Mary Goode had returned home, free from the terrible ordeal that had plagued her and her friends Matthew and Evie. The loss of time while they were incarcerated and the devastating trial almost left her broken but the council of witches came to her aide and saved her life just as Sebastian saved Filipe's.

They were both finally free to live their lives with their children happily.

As the table in Fatima's kitchen began to fill with food from her native Portugal, Filipe held on to Mary as if she'd blow away by the wind. He wanted her close, so close that she could smell his skin. How she missed his scent, a warm tone like cinnamon and coffee.

"It is by the grace of God you're all free." Fatima said, placing two more plates down onto the table with Charlotte's help.

"I'll never understand how this sister of yours just suddenly appeared." Filipe said. "It's really a miracle."

Mary knew better, but had to keep up the lie that Verity was indeed a long lost twin.

"My mother was a secretive woman." Mary said. "She kept things even from me."

"But..." Charlotte began as the puzzle was fully forming in her mind "why would your sister take the blame for everything. We know what everyone saw. We know the truth." 

"Charlotte minha querida, it's best now to let things go the way they are. Especially with this. My advice is never go deeper into the sea if you don’t know what monsters lurk there." Fatima replied knowing that this surprise twin perhaps had a deeper story that maybe they shouldn't touch.

"I guess,” the young woman replied unsatisfied “I wish I had known her." Charlotte added.

"She saved us." Filipe said, sitting with Mary. "We should do something for her. Maybe have a place somewhere on Goode Island as a memorial. Next to Louise and Eliza's graves." He added mentioning the little baby Mary miscarried who'd been buried next Eliza Goode. 

"I think that's a good idea." Fatima said, pouring wine into the glasses. "Vamos-la, we should pray, say thanks for bringing our family back together." 

"Oh!" Mary said jumping up form the table hearing the baby in the other room wake up. "We forgot someone."

Seconds flashed by and Mary returned with her little son, Caleb, the boy who'd been born to Aurora and Caspian. The boy who’s birth parents were searching for him.

"We can't forget our little one." Filipe smiled taking his little boy into his arms.

Mary looked around the table. A family had formed. They'd survived so much and were finally together happy and safe. She wondered just how much more would happen and if they'd be happy this way forever. In Welshport, happiness and safety was never guaranteed, but for now, her little family was in the palm of her hand and this little lunch felt as if it were the best thing that had ever happened to her in a very long time. 

There was Fatima sitting in her chair making Charlotte's plate of potatoes and her favorite bacalhau recipe with greens that had been boiled on the side with carrots and Portuguese sausage. A plate Charlotte remarked was too much food for her.

Filipe chuckled, his mother-- the woman he'd always believed to be his aunt-- was always this way. She showed love with feeding someone. Mary watched, standing, as their interactions felt real and warm. The baby in his father's arms giggling and sipping on a bottle of milk. 

Then, in the glass of the window Mary saw a woman walking down the street. The woman was in gray. Cloaked or veiled -- all in gray. The family continued to giggle and laugh eat and drink, celebrate Mary's homecoming and the woman in Mary's eyeline walked closer and closer to the kitchen window until suddenly she was walking through the wall and standing only feet from the happy family.

No one reacted and it happened with such quick succession. Mary knew no one could see the woman.

Suddenly the veiled person, all in gray, began to remove her veil but before Mary could see who was under, the person turned to ash and fell into a heap onto the kitchen floor. 

Mary gasped in shock. The room fell silent, everyone looked up at her.

"What is it?" Filipe asked. "Are you ok?" 

Charlotte's eyes darted to where Mary was looking, she saw the mound of ash where the person once stood, then the young sorceress she saw the mound disappear before her eyes. Charlotte said nothing. She got up from her chair and walked over to her mother and grabbed her by the hand.

"It's alright."

Mary's eyes watered, she had no idea what she had just seen but she knew that it was some kind of premonition. Something was telling her about Verity, her twin sister created by the council that was now just ashes after being burned alive as a witch.

Or... was it Jacqueline. 

"It's alright." Charlotte repeated.

Mary felt safe again once Charlotte's voice and the baby's giggles cut through the shock of what she saw.

"Sit, let's eat." Filipe said happily.

Mary smiled and went back to her chair next to her husband. Charlotte's stomach was a knot. Mary's too.

Fatima, who had just witnessed the entire situation, said nothing either. But she knew too.

The woman of Ash was the first reminder things were not as they seemed. 

****

Lucas & Lear visit Matthew 

Back in his small apartment in the Village, Matthew Winterborn stared into a cold mug of beer and watched the islands of foam separate from the center to the edges of the inner glass. His mind felt as if it too was floating away and separating from himself. 

He was lonely and lost without Evie by his side and despite respecting her decision to end their romance so she could dedicate herself fully to her child, he was struggling accepting it.

As he sat there, in a fresh white A-shirt there was a knock at his door. Matthew didn't even move; he shouted for the visitor to enter the unlocked apartment. 

"Matthew?" A familiar voice said, "It's Lucas!" His friend said entering hand in hand with his equally as handsome young partner Lear Lockwood.

Matthew called to his old friend to come into the back room, there Lucas and Lear entered finding Matthew in a depressed state.

"Are you alright?" Lucas asked as the two good friends embraced. "We came by to check on you."

Lear looked around and could tell Matthew had been home a while. The apartment seemed disheveled and unkept, very unlike Matthew's personality. 

"Evie decided to end things." Matthew said in a low sad voice. "She thought that it was better for us to just be friends for now so that she can focus on Gabriel." 

"Oh." Lucas said his tone searching for words of comfort. "I'm — I’m so sorry. I know how much you love her, but after all you have been through together I am surprised." 

"She's going through a lot too." Lear reminded them. "Maybe it's for the best." 

"Of course. I — I can’t be selfish. It is for the best. For Gabriel’s best." Matthew replied. "But I can't help but think that maybe, I don't know, if I had done more to get us out of that whole situation in court we'd be together today. I didn't do enough. I just sat back and let things happened as they did." 

"Matthew what would have been able to do? This was an unprecedented situation two centuries in the making. No one knew where this would go." Lear replied. "I had no legal loophole to stand on and if this Verity person hadn't shown up I really think I would have lost this case. None of it is your fault, none of this could have been fixed by you." 

"Lear is right, the most important thing is that you stayed by her side and kept her safe as best you could. She didn't break up with you because you didn't do that, she just wants to focus on Gabriel. It's not really an end, I see it more as a pause." Lucas replied ever the optimist. 

Matthew's eyes twinkled at his best friend's attempt to cheer him up with some hope, but the truth is where it was, in Evie's words to end their relationship as it was. 

"Thank you for that vote of confidence, my friend, but I know where she and I stand. I can't pretend my heart isn't broken, but I'll get up from here and get better. Hopefully." Matthew replied.

Lear sighed "We were just in the neighborhood and thought we'd stop by. Perhaps we should let you have your day, huh? Some time alone?" Lear added.

Matthew nodded and the two visitors decided to let Matthew sulk in his heartbreak by himself. Sometimes people need to be alone with their feelings, they thought, and for now Matthew needed that.

"But just today!" Lucas joked. "I'll be back tomorrow to check on you, amigo." He added using the Portuguese word for friend. 

Matthew walked them out to the door and watched them go down the exterior stairs of his apartment. A seagull circled the building as if it were lost in the clouds above. Matthew looked up from his door at the top of the staircase and watched. He felt as lost as the pure white seagull, searching for some kind of beacon to bring him home. 

Once alone again, Matthew realized that evie was his beacon. Evie was his home and he didn’t need to be lost in the fog anymore. Even if Evie decided she didn't want to be with him now, he'd prove to her they were better together. Somehow, some way, he'd prove it. And Sebastian Lord had better watch himself. Matthew was determined to make sure Evie and Gabriel were kept safe from Sebastian's treacherous fangs, no matter how reformed he said he was.

**

Laurel runs into Lear & Lucas 

Outside, Lear and Lucas shook off the worry they had for Matthew and hoped that in the coming days he'd being to feel better about his relationship with Evie. Lucas knew his friend Matthew well, this, the young handsome Portuguese man believed was a small set back.

"Matthew will be back on to his old self soon. He's hurting now, but I think with time things will reset." Lucas told Lear.

"You think so? They've been through so much together, I can't imagine going through all of that and then not having you. " The handsome lawyer said squeezing Lucas's had as they bounded down the street. 

The notion that Lear felt so strongly for him sent tingles up Lucas' spine.

"Really?" Lucas asked.

Lear shrugged. "Yeah!"

As conversation of Matthew faded, Lucas and Lear walked along the street teasing each other, basking in their own happy glow of love. They'd met and began their tryst, and it all felt so right. It all happened at such a perfect time in both of their lives.

Lucas couldn't believe how lucky he was, Lear too. Lear had a succession of failed relationships that had started in and ended in ways that he'd rather not repeat, in this one with Lucas, he wanted to do all the right things from the start. 

They walked along the cobblestone street that snaked alongside a cliff that that overlooked the crashing waves of a deep blue sea. The wind blew though Lear's hair, Lucas pulled him close by the lapel of his coat. Their noses touched and for a brief moment the world stopped. No sounds of seagulls or crashing waves, just their beat of their pulses almost synchronizing and the warm touch of their skin touching. Hands together. Lips. Then a kiss. Soft and warm. A slip of a tongue that felt earth shaking. Lear held Lucas by his face with one hand almost as if to hold him there in the kiss forever.

A connection both needed from another person for so many years.

After this perfect moment, the world swirled again around them and like two schoolboys in their first crush the headed down happily towards Gramercy Cafe. There, they bumped into Dr. Peter Ward's wife Laurel with her granddaughter Samantha. The little girl was growing up fast, and her beauty was on full display, Laurel was a proud grandmother and had been raising the child since her son and daughter-in-law died in an accident when the 5-year-old was only a few months old. 

"Well she's really quite beautiful Mrs. Ward." Lear said squeezing the little girls pink cheeks.

"The spitting image of my daughter-in-law." Laurel replied. "Tell me, how are things are going? I'm afraid to trust anything I read in the papers now at days." She added hinting at all the courtroom drama she missed.

"Fine now!" Lear replied. "After Verity Spencer came forward and admitted she’d been posing as Mary at the coves, it ended the way it was supposed to." 

Laurel’s face twisted with confusion at how quick Lear accepted the outcome of the trial and wasn’t questioning any of as a good lawyer might.

"Thank god for that." Lucas added, quickly coming to his new partner’s agreement.

"Yes, thank god." Laurel replied with a hint of suspicion. "Though, don't you find it odd that Mary suddenly had a surprise twin sister? Of all the years I knew Eliza, she had never, ever told me that she had two daughters. It was always just Mary. And — Verity is dead now, I don’t find it at all a reason to celebrate." 

“Of course, Mrs. Ward, of course! Verity’s life ending is incredibly tragic but Mary was innocent of something Verity did. That’s all I meant.” Lear said attempting to clean up what he said.

“I still can’t believe Eliza never told me of this Verity person.” She said. 

Lucas felt a bit worried that there was obviously more to what happened on the last day of court than anyone really knew. "Maybe she didn't know." He said.

"Didn't know?" Laurel asked as a fresh breeze blew across her thick mane of red hair. "How couldn't she have known?" 

"I've learned in my short time here that people often don't know a lot about their families. Look at Coraline for example, she didn't know she was really Maggie Lockwood for her whole life. That was kept from her.”

Maggie lifted a brow and glanced at Lear who was expressionless, “Yes I remember the stories of Henry Lockwood.”

“It turns out someone helped her father sell her on the black market." Lucas innocelty revealed.

"Uhhh, Luc, maybe we shouldn't get into all that with Mrs. Ward." Lear interjected finally. 

"Oh, I was only..." Lucas began before Laurel interrupted.

"How do you know someone helped her father do this?" Laurel probed unrelentingly. 

"We have proof!" Lucas added, again to Lear's slight annoyance. 

"Lucas." 

"Oh, sorry." 

"Proof? How interesting. What kind of proof?" Laurel asked, her left brow lifting with wonder.

This time Lucas remained quiet, Lear sighed and filled her in.

"A name. We found a name deep in this forged adoption paperwork my Cora’s parents received that proves my father didn't act alone, that someone helped him broker the deal and Cora believes if we find this person than maybe more children who were illegally adopted will be discovered." 

Laurel gulped. "She wasn't the only one.”

"What's that?" Lear asked

"OH! I ... um I was, I was asking, She believes she wasn't the only child, then?" Laurel said, her words falling over themselves as they escaped her lips. 

"Right." Lucas replied. "We need to find this Ridgeway person who's on the papers." 

"I see, boys, good luck!" Laurel said, ending their conversation quickly. 

"Thanks,….” Lucas said as Laurel quickly rushed off. 

“um goodbye Mrs. Ward." Lear said, turning to Lucas "That was an abrupt about-face." 

Laurel quickly made her way down the street towards home when she passed a friendly florist who shouted over to her as she passed 

"AFTER NOON MRS. RIDGEWAY-WARD! Good to see you!!" 

Laurel's stomach sank. 

She was the Ridgeway in the papers.

She was the Ridgeway Cora, Lear and Lucas were looking for.

****

Aurora & Caspian

At The Welshport Inn, Aurora had spent the night with Caspian. Their connection a muddle of past secrets and history that still haunted them even in this very moment. But they had so much still to discover, mainly their missing child, a child being secretly raised by Mary and Filipe. 

Caspian stood in the bathroom staring at himself in the mirror. His headaches were coming and going like the waves on the shores. Sometimes they felt stronger than those waves, pushing up against his eyes with a powerful pressure that he could not describe.

Aurora stood in the main room of the hotel suite, folding the blanket she had used while sleeping on the small sofa. Her worry grew as Caspian, who fled from Tirymor House because of Rebecca's attempt to suppress the truth about Danielle from him, had been in the bathroom a great amount of time.

He splashed water on his face from a cooled porcelain basin with blue and white swirled paint of waves and a ship set at sea. He looked at himself in the mirror...his head ached. His eyes almost felt as if they were about the pop out of their sockets.

Aurora knocked on the door.

"WHAT!?!" he snapped.

"I…I was just checking on you." She stuttered through the door.

Caspian calmed himself realizing his bark was unwarranted. He opened the door to see the beautiful Aurora with the blanket she was folding now wrapped around her hands in a ball as her nerves took over. 

"I'm sorry. I just didn't sleep very well. These headaches are just torturing me." He replied.

"I wish Ward would finally know how to help you." She said.

"They'll go with time as I heal." He answered. "So, where do we start?" He added

"Start?" 

"To find our son." He smiled. 

"We have to go back to Asha. We have to see her and get answers to all of our questions. She's the only one who tell us what happened that night and finally tell us whom she placed our child with." 

But before Caspian could answer there was a knock on the hotel room door. 

Caspian worried it was Rebecca. Aurora too.

Caspian straightened out his vest prepared to fight his wife on what she had done, but when he opened the door, there was his daughter, Viktor's daughter, Danielle Holten.

Danielle stood there, her hands at her side standing tall stared in the eyes of her father. The man she believed dead for so long, the man who died and left her mother destitute and alone was now in front of her like a ghost. 

They stood there in silence. 

Aurora quickly came to the door to break the silence. 

"Nurse Holten, what are you doing here?" She asked.

"Mrs. Jordan, hello, I didn't expect to see you here, I... I came to see..." Danielle's eyes turned to her father, "my father."

Caspian stood there in the presence of a woman who had his nose. His dark eyes and dark hair. A connection in flesh and blood to his past.

"Please come in." He said.

"Was I interrupting?" Danielle said, noticing the unmade bed.

"It's not what you think." Aurora smirked. "Caspian and I, well, we've had a long night discussing something that has happened to the two of us. Its a very long story that in truth affects you too, now that we know you and Caspian are related." 

"Caspian." Danielle said. "I don't think I'll ever get use to that being your name." 

"It's all I've known." He replied.

"Viktor." Danielle said to him. "Your name is Viktor Holten, and you're my father."

Her eyes began to water. His too. He could see himself in her. All this time, almost 3 years now he'd been living a life of a man with no history. A man whose world had only begun after the awful demon left his body, freeing him of a terrible existence plagued by evil intentions to destroy and distort. The two Holtens had so much time to make up and Aurora felt as if she were just a fly on the wall as they reconnected. 

His past to his daughter's. Her past to her father's.

"Where do we begin?" She said.

"Anywhere." He said walking her over to the sofa where Aurora had slept.

"Before, though, if you excuse me, I just need to take a minute. Please." Caspian replied.

"Of course." Danielle answered.

Aurora's worry once again was plastered all over her face, she could see Capsian's headaches were back.

In the bathroom, once again with the door closed, Caspian stared intensely at his own reflection. His eyes darkened, his mouth fell, a sleek cruel grin stretched across his face. Something sinister was deep in his veins and he could only express it when the headaches came. 

As his fists balled on the bathroom counter, he could feel his headache breaking his mind in two. He could feel something in his telling him to do something that no ordinary person would think. The person in the reflection was not the person staring back. These were two different creatures.

One a man, Viktor Holten, the other a hungry violent monster that had become reborn with the blow to the head from the cave floors. The creature who called himself the Hunter, the creature named Caspian. 

The mind was split in one body.  

The devil and the man. 

****

Genevieve & Christopher in the Tirymor Drawing room  

Later that afternoon, Tirymor House seemed quiet by comparison to the last few weeks when several construction workers invaded the house to repair the damage done by the mob. The shredded carpets had been rethreaded, the broken golden frames around the giant family portraits that had been ripped form the walls had been rebound and brought back to their rectangular glory. 

Smashed vases were replaced. Potted plants replanted. Holes on the lawn refilled and the several doors rehinged. Someone had even taken a dagger or a sharp object and dragged it across Rebecca's lily white foyer walls marking them for what they hoped would be forever.

Rebecca, who had all the money in the world, had it quickly repainted and patched. It was as if nothing had even happened.

Tirymor remained standing and in almost mint condition. No one who saw what happened would have ever even known what the mob had done. 

As Rebecca wrote a quick note, she called Aaron Hamstead in. He was to deliver the note to Fatima Braga's house. In it, an update for Charlotte on her father's condition. 

"Are you alright ma'am?" Aaron asked, he sensed her uncharacteristic silence as a sign of her discontent. 

She rubbed the ink off her fingers and took a breath. Her marriage was in shambles. She had a plan to remedy that but had to wait for the lure to sink deeper into the ocean that she dunked it in for her fish to bite. And then, before she could answer, Jane entered with two guests.

"I apologize for the interruption," Jane said "but Ms. Genevieve Thorne and ... a guest are here ma'am."

Jane's white face told Rebecca Geneiveve had brought the back-form-the-dead David Lord, going under his new name Christopher.

"Ah. They're probably here to take young Morgan." Rebecca said. 

Genevieve and Chris walked in, Aaron gulped at the sight of the spitting images of David and Sabrina as they entered the room. Same faces. Different names. Aaron had not seen them together. It was eerie and strange to see his best friend and the dead ringer of his dead wife in front him again. Rebecca seemed unfazed.

"Aaron." Rebecca said, her voice like a snap of finger waking Aaron from a sleep. "Please fetch Morgan for us." 

"OH! Of course! Of course!" Aaron said rushing off with Jane.

In the corner of the halls, Jane begged to know what was going on, Aaron, who knew Chris was David pretended to know nothing. 

"Well, I see you're both doing well." Rebecca said, her heart feeling like a ship lost at sea without Caspian.

"We won't bother you Mrs. Casador, as soon as Morgan comes, we'll be off." Genevieve said, also feeling strange that Rebecca's reaction seemed so calm towards her after their physical altercation at the hospital.

Of course, the reason for Rebecca's calm demeanor was because she had so much on her mind. Her skirmish with Genevieve fell short of Rebecca’s attention. 

Rebecca had also already had conversation with Chris and accepted his turn away from his life as David. For now at least— she held strong to her hope that David would some day snap out of alias and come home. 

While they waited for Morgan, Chris said nothing. 

"It's no bother." Rebecca said, standing from her bureau, noting Chris’ awkward silence. "I completely understand how much a mother wants to be close to her child, her son. It's such a powerful connection and I for one would never ever keep a mother from that. Don't you agree Mr. Wesley?" 

It was obvious what Rebecca was trying to do, but Chris stayed true to himself.

"I wouldn't say that is the case for all mothers and sons." Chris said. "I'd say that for those who've had good relationships your view makes sense, but not everyone has had the same relationship with their parents as, perhaps, you have Mrs. Casador." he added as Rebecca lifted a brow.

"Mother." Morgan said, entering the room.

"Darling!" Genevieve shouted rushing over kissing both his cheeks. "Are you ready, you're coming with us. We've found a place in the village where we can all be together. A place where I will never ever leave you again."

Morgan nodded, sadly. 

"What is it?" Chris asked.

Morgan looked at Rebecca, her jaw set, her frame like stone statue with a glittering black gown.

"I'm going to miss her." He said.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes confused thinking Morgan was talking about her.

"Uh...Who darling?" Geneieve asked, knowing surely he didn't mean the cold dowager Lord matriarch.

"Charlotte."

The room felt as if the walls themselves exhaled in relief, finally understanding where the young man was going with this words. "I don't really know if I want to leave." 

"You'll be able to see Charlotte anytime you want. The house we've found is very close to Fatima Braga's and you can see her whenever you'd like." Chris said.

"That's not her permanent place of residence, is it?!" Rebecca shouted. 

"For the time being, yes." Genevieve replied.

Rebecca groaned "For god's sake, I thought it was temporary. I used to think that cottage on Goode Island was the worst place she could be raised now she's in a fortune teller's house." 

"She's happy with them there. They really treat her kindly." Morgan said.

"That will change once Jacob returns, Morgan, and you're more than welcome to visit any time you'd like." Rebecca said.

"Mrs. Casador?" a voice came from the door. "I'll be off to the village now to deliver your letter."

Everyone turned, it was Aaron who smiled at his best friend Christopher, the man he knew as David.

"Very we--" Rebecca said before Morgan interrupted.

"CAN I GO WITH YOU? Can I mother? I'll only got a bit and say hello then I'll come home to yours." He said.

"Morgan, I really would preferer you to come home with me straight away." Genevieve said.

"Oh, please! I promise, I won't be long, right Aaron?" The boy said.

"Not long, no." Aaron replied.

Genevieve couldn't resist her son. She allowed him to go after all she'd done to him leaving him in Welshport all along while she went to London in the hands of Johnathon who completely ignored rearing him while she was gone. She couldn't back away from giving him what he wanted. Aaron and Morgan rushed off together and Genevieve and Chris were to take their leave but not before Rebecca pulled Chris back by his sleeve.

"Morgan isn't the only one who is welcome to visit here any time he'd like...Mr. Wesley." She said.

Chris smiled and nodded. 

Rebecca wanted more than just her husband back at home, she wanted all of her children too. Starting with Christopher. But there was still so much to process before he could ever fully return to the gilded castle he once called home. 

****

At Welshport Hope Hospital, Celeste and 5-year-old Fabian walked hand in hand in the large lobby. The littlest Lord heir stared up at the large vaulted ceilings that dangled with the glitter of French chandeliers and reflected the sun light swooping in from skylights across from them. His eyes sparkled with the wonder of this place of healing and recovery but it also held a haunting reminder that his father, Jacob, was there recovering from a heart attack after seeing what he believed was his dead brother in front of the courthouse. 

"Remember what I told you. When we see daddy, be careful not to squeeze too tight. He's still recovering." Celeste warned her little boy. 

Little Fabian nodded signaling he understood, just as Dr. Nik Jordan encountered them.

"Well, hello you two. How's Jacob doing?" Dr. Jordan asked.

"He's getting better, isn't he Fabie?" Celeste said as the little boy shyly hid behind his mother's large maroon skirt. "He's still trying to piece it all together." Celeste added.

Nik knelt down so that he and the boy were eye to eye.

"You know, when I was your age, my mother got very, very sick too." He said.

"What happened?" Fabian asked meekly. 

"She caught a sickness that kept her in bed for a very long time. We were all very scared for her just like you are now." 

Celeste never knew this of Nik's mother Aurora. 

"Where is your mommy? Is she in heaven?" Fabian asked revealing his worst fear for Jacob.

"Not at all. She's very happy and very healthy. Sometimes healing takes a while. That's why we call people in the hospital patients, because they have to have patience." Nik joked.

Celeste giggled, Fabian's nose crinkled up, his little ears hearing two different words. 

"Get it?" Nik asked.

"Yet another thing we'll have to piece together: Dr. Jordan's very silly jokes." Celeste smiled. "See you Nik." 

"Bye now." 

As Celeste went off to with the adorable boy, Nik went into Asha's room where Asha was sleeping.

He went over and checked her vitals. All good. He worked on her sheet when suddenly she stirred. 

Asha had been awake from her coma for days but pretending to not have memory of the events that got her in the hospital and more importantly the events that got her kidnapped by Gregory in the first place. Her motive was to keep Nik as close as possible after finding him kissing Danielle Holten. 

"Hi." She said softly.

"Oh, I hope I didn't wake you." He said.

"Not, at all. Did you find out when I can go home?" She asked. 

"Yes, we have discharge papers for you ready to go, I just need Dr. Ward to sign off on them." Nik said. 

"Thank goodness, I've been really excited for us to get back to where we were." She said.

Nik felt a twinge of discomfort, Asha sensed it too. In the time Asha had been in a coma he had fallen out of love with her, not because of meeting Danielle but because of what he discovered she and Gregory had done. The encounter with Danielle was just a new beginning for him, but until Asha could remember what happened to the child she and Gregory took away from his mother, Nik could not tell Asha it was over between them. 

And she knew this. 

"I'd like for you to definitely get back to where you were, that's where we should start. I'm hoping you took some time to think about the psychotherapy I mentioned with the new psychiatrist coming in. She's world renowned and could really unlock the memories that your accident is holding back." he said.

"What is it that you think I'm holding back exactly -- I mean that my accident caused me to hold back." Asha replied, correcting her mistake of words. 

"I think maybe it's better for you to discover what happened on your own so that your mind isn't influenced by anything from the outside. It's important you tell us everything you know from your own recollection." 

Asha's heart felt as if it were beating out of her chest. They all knew. She knew it would come out and in fact she wanted it to come out before the fire and Gregory's kidnapping of her but the addition of Danielle into Nik's heart meant she would confess to her crime and lose everything. It was not what she wanted now that she had this second lease on life and surviving such a horrible accident. 

"I was almost killed in a fire, a devastating fire, you were there." Asha said. "I just want to go home and rest and not think of hospitals or doctors or anything of that nature.' 

"Asha, I'm a doctor. So are you. We both know you can run from any ailments, we cannot let you go if your body is unready." 

"You know what I mean." She said. "I need rest from this place, this town. I’ve decided something.” She announced

“Decided? What do you mean?” Nik asked confused.

“I’ve decided I want to go away for a while, and I'm hoping you'll come with me Nikolas."

"You want to leave?" 

Asha nodded. 

"How can we do that, we have so much to take care of here. And what about what happened with Gregory? We really should dive into that. And I can't leave Da..." Nik said almost revealing his new love's name. 

"You can't leave what?" Asha asked, knowing what it was but wanting to hear it from him. Would he be brave enough to say her name?

"I can't leave Dr. Ward." Nik said, lying. "he'll be only one of a few doctor's here and I can't do that to him. So short staffed and all." 

"Nik he'll figure it out. He always does.” Asha replied. "Please, please let's go away, far away this place with so much treachery and danger. I promise where ever we go I'll do what I can to get my memory back. But I can't do that here. It's too hard. There's just too much going on here to really focus." Asha said.

Nik wanted her to tell the truth. He wanted her to find it in the deepest part of her mind and for some reason he believed she wanted it too. He was trusting of her, this new Asha who had just woken up from her coma, who told him she had no memories of what had happened was clean slate, so he thought, and if he did leave with her for a little while, perhaps she'd finally get the truth back and tell them everything. 

It was a sacrifice, to leave his new budding relationship with Danielle to get Asha to remember, and so Nik agreed.

"We'll go. But only for a while." Nik said.

Asha squealed with glee. She reached up to him and held him in her arms, she could feel his body loose, no tension, no affection. It hurt her, but at least she'd now have a chance to win him back wherever they'd go. 

The deadly nightshade that so inspired her the day before in the hospital garden would now be her last resort, but still a last resort. She her plan to take Nik away from Danielle fail — the deadly nightshade would do it for her. 

****

That night at, still at the hospital, Aaron stood guard at Jacob's room. He'd been there all day and all night and stayed allowing the family to go back home and rest.

Soon, he wasn't alone.

Another informant that had recently joined Jacob’s secret network of spies had been keeping tabs on Sebastian walked down the hall of the hospital in a clip clop sound of heels.

Aaron smiled as the person’s face become seen in the shadowy light of the hall. 

"You're here late." Aaron said. "What brings you?"

The informant smiled and kissed Aaron on the lips. The informant and spy was Aaron's girlfriend: 

Coraline Tyler. 

"I'd had a really busy day with some other things. Wanted to check on Jacob. Is he ok?" She asked. 

All her time working at Tirymor with Gabriel had given Aaron and Cora time to get to know each other and they'd realized they had a lot in common. Jacob saw this too, when he caught them kissing one night in the gardens. It dawned on Jacob, Cora was a perfect person to do his secret work. She'd already owed him for slipping sensitive information about the family to Baxter, she could certainly do it for him. After all Cora was family too-- she was Maggie Lockwood, and it helped that Jacob paid better. 

"He's getting there. But it's still touch and go. Dr. Ward is great, I think Jacob will make it. He has nine lives." Aaron said.

Cora lifted a brow, "I think he's on his sixth." She joked.

And with that, the clock in the hall chimed one in the morning. Cora would leave Aaron at his post and dash off into the night, keeping herself stealth. 

No one could know her double life. 

****

Elsewhere that night, way after the sun went down over the hills of mainland Maine, Evie stood on her veranda bathed in the dim glow of the moon. She wrapped herself in a warm blanket and stared out onto the sea as waves crashed on the nearby beach. Off in the distance, in the dark, she heard the familia sound of whales breaching the surface of the sea pushing out the bursts of air and taking in more. 

It was a calming sound to her, something she had heard for the first few nights at Bellmore Beach. 

Gabriel was asleep. Aurora was in the village, Nik was at work, Matthew was at his own home. 

Sebastian -- somewhere in the shadows. 

She was alone thinking about the two men she loved. One an honest hard-working man who adored her and her child, the other said child's father, her former husband, a man whose life was turned upside down for no fault of his own. 

She recalled how Sebastian promised he'd changed, he'd found a way to control his cravings and how Matthew, a truehearted soul, was skeptical of him still. 

Within that sound of the whales and sea memories started to creep in. She thought about the day she arrived in Welshport. Her excitement. Her hopes. Her dreams. The dangers and tragedies she had faced and how she survived. She wanted to change this dynamic. She wanted to go back to the woman she was before she came to this island, so self-assured, poised to take control of her life before the marriage. Independant from any man, even though her heart still loved two at the same time. 

The night was coming, no more sun. A chill ran up her spine. 

**

Matthew walked along the Gaslamp lit streets of town. It was early yet, hid body wanted sleep but his mind kept him awake. So much to think about. So much to hope for in the future and it all involved the woman he loved so much. 

Evie. 

As he walked, he saw a man in silhouette dashing between shadows of buildings rushing down the cobblestone streets. Matthew narrowed his eyes and was certain it was Sebastian floating along going somewhere in a hurry.

Matthew followed. 

As Matthew went down a dark alley way through the town following the obscured by light Sebastian, a man was cleaning the area around the town square where Verity was tied to the pyre. The villagers had come by and left flowers for the woman, the guilt of all their consciences finally; the understanding of what they did in accusing the three innocent people of such archaic crimes felt ugly, even if this Verity woman admitted to it. 

The town had asked for the area to be cleaned after the mourning and in the middle of the night as to keep prying eyes from seeing any more of the charred body. 

The man, a town worker, carried the burned body of Verity Spencer, the twin of Mary created by the witch council for Jacqueline Gray to shapeshift into, in a crate over to a large work shed where later it would be buried in a small grave in Saint Thomas' cemetery in the morning. 

Once the door closed, and the light of the street Gaslamps peeked in from the open slits of the shed's slats the burned body stood up in the open crate. 

The charred skin, burned hair, ash of bones began to crumble away like sand from an Egyptian artifact. There, standing straight up was the pristine perfect body of Verity Spencer, the spitting image of her twin Mary Goode. 

She was alive.
As she stepped out of the crate on to the hard ground of the shed she turned back and looked inside her once wooden coffin: inside just a mound of ash in the shape of what was once there.

Verity smiled and dusted herself off -- then snuck out of the shed into the night. 

At the very same moment, Jacqueline Gray awoke screaming inside the now abandoned Goode Family cottage on the small island of the same name. Her mind flashing of flames and the pain of being burned alive, her mouth tasted of soot and fire. And yet not a scratch on her. Not a single burn or flame scorched her body. 

She had survived the burning just as the Council had promised but so had Verity. 

Now they were two, and Jacqueline sensed it. 

"What have they done?" She whispered to herself of the council. "What is to come?"

**

Matthew follows the shadowy figure 

Matthew followed the shadow. 

The dim lights darted in between buildings and alleyways and gates and fences.

Dogs barked at the two people slithering about the night. 

Then, Matthew stopped dead in his tracks when the person he was following snuck into the darkened garden of the house where Timothy Churchill lived. 

Matthew watched; his eyes intently focused on the person he thought was Sebastian literally walk through the wall.

Inside, the person the darkness walked through the halls of the Mayor's mansion floating off the ground. A heaviness entered the home, something hot and cold at the same time. Flowers wilted as the person passed them, pictures on the wall rattled in their frames. 

The door of Churchill's bedroom pushed open slowly revealing the man asleep in his bed, turned to one side. The person draped in the darkness of night reached down with a ghost like hand and grabbed Churchill by the throat. 

Choking him. 

The man's eyes flipped open, he gasped for air. He could felt the strong hands around his throat. His eyes were blurry with water. He could not see the person choking him. The hands grew tighter around his throat, his feet felt numb. His eyes bugged out from his head and then. 

Death.

Churchill was no more. The last of his legacy. 

Outside, the neighborhood empty. Matthew was gone, too scared to encounter the person he thought was Sebastian exiting Churchill's home and vanishing into thin air. 

Matthew was now back in his own living room pacing back and forth panicking wondering what he should do next. He had assumed Sebastian was lurking around people's homes in the shadows. Matthew couldn't decypher if that is what he saw just now outside Churchill's house. 

It had to. But did he now have proof?

Evie had to be warmed; she had to be warned that Sebastian as still shadowy creature he promised her he left behind.

**

Evie is not alone 

Back on her veranda at Bellmore Beach the night air of the ocean became too cold for her to handle. She reached over for the candle she lit on a small table next to the two white deck chairs and walked over to the screen door and blew it out.

When she looked up, Sebastian was standing at the screen door with Gabriel in his arms. 

She screamed! Startled by her son's father's sudden appearance out of thin air.

"Sebastian what are you doing here?" She asked. 

He smiled, a kind glow on his face, and looked down at his beautiful sleeping son.

"I'm taking back my family." 

Evie tilted her head and furrowed her brow, unsure of what he was talking about and then, the man she loved once upon a time opened his mouth revealing his fangs, 

“Sebastian? …NO!” Evie exclaimed with her arm covering her mouth as she slowly backed away from him terrified. 

As Sebastian approached, he snatched at the arm she held up and yanked her close. Her head bent back and his fanged mouth went down towards the soft flesh of her neck and then, in a flash, Evie's mind went blank.

Only darkness -- no sound.

Only a half an hour later, the panic-stricken Matthew arrived by Taxi at Bellmore Beach to tell Evie what he had seen at Churchill's home, to warn her, to protect her. He saw all the first-floor lights on in Evie's home. He burst in, hoping to find her to tell her he saw Sebastian still doing what he promised he wouldn't do.

But Evie was not there.

Gabriel was not there.

They were gone. The house was void of any life. Just pictures, a burning hearth, a cold cup of tea and a melted candle on the doorstep of the screen door that led to the veranda. The wax from the wick hadn't even had time to harden. One of the picture frames empty and tossed to the side of the white sofa.

Matthew recalled it being one of Evie and Gabriel that he took himself sitting on the beach. 

"They're gone." Matthew whispered to himself. 

Sebastian had taken his family back just as he said -- to parts unknown. 

B7/Ch17: WHERE THE NIGHTSHADE GROWS

Asha watches a nun from her hospital bedroom 

Within the sterile walls of Welshport Hope Hospital there is a long rectangle shaped room reserved for patients who are recovering from a long convalescence in a much more inviting atmosphere rather than just in regular hospital room. There are couches and plants, paintings on the wall, two small dressers and a private lavatory. A hospital hotel room in all its ways. 

In that room, Dr. Asha Hoffman sat in a wheelchair staring out onto a small garden just outside the window where a nun from St. Catherine's Church had volunteered to cheer up the flower beds by planting late spring lavender hyacinths. The nun had an apron stained from the smudged flower petals of reds and deep purples, proof of her hard work. Asha stared at the crimson stains on the apron like they were a famous artist’s design.

She was practically transfixed.

Dr. Nikolas Jordan, Asha’s one time paramour, entered the room all the way at the end and spotted Asha. He hadn't had a conversation with her since she had awoken from her coma and there was a lot to talk about. 

He was desperate to question her about where she and Gregory placed his little brother, the baby Aurora gave birth to. Asha and Gregory conspired and gave the child to Mary and Filipe to raise before the trial started. 

Nik discovered the secret betrayal just when Gregory kidnapped Asha who was close to backing out of their plot. When Nik found her, she was tied up in a secret room at Gregory's apartment and the building caught on fire; Asha coma came from burning debris that almost crushed her to death. 

The time had come, in the long rectangular room at Welshport Hope, for the truth to finally come out.

"Asha, good morning. So good to see you up and around!" Nik said pulling a chair up close to her.

“Nik! Hi!” She said spinning her chair around to see him.

“How does it feel?” 

"It feels good." She said with a smile. "I feel like I've been out of it for years." 

"Just a few months." He smiled; his cheek dimples deeper than she remembered. 

"So, what have you been up to?" She asked, her question odd and pregnant with suspicion.

"Up to?" Nik asked, slightly confused. "I've been working 'round the clock hoping you'd come to, for one!" 

"Well, I'm here. I've come to." She replied almost as if to say now take me home and never speak of what happened again. 

Nik could tell something was different about Asha. She didn't seem to be happy to see him and in a way that hurt his feelings even though she was the one who had done something terrible to his family. He took a beat to reply but decided enough was enough. He loved her, he deeply cared for his but the truth of what she did overshadowed those feelings now. He wanted to know everything and no set of romantic intentions, whether they were new or from the past, would stop him.

"Ash, I need to clear somethings with you. Important things…I really need to ask you a few questions." he said.

"But Dr. Ward already assessed me. He thinks I could go home soon." She replied, avoiding his inquisition.

"That's wonderful news." he answered. "But, I wasn’t going to asses you. I need to ask you a few questions about the night you delivered my mother's child." He added, finally ripping the Band-Aid off.

Asha’s head made a quick jerk to the left to face Nik, their eyes locked — she instantly knew, he knew. His questioning of that night, of that incident, being the first thing he wanted to discuss so soon after her revival was telling. 

"Why?" She shot back.

"It would help us to know what really happened and to finally understand why Gregory had you in that room tied up." He answered.

"What has Gregory said?" She wondered.

He took a breath and lifted a brow, "Asha, I’m sorry to say this but Gregory is dead. He was mauled to death by an animal the night I came and found you in his apartment. That's why I need to know from you. I need you to tell me what happened the night you delivered my mother's baby, you’re the only one who knows the truth." 

Asha's heart sank. It was the first she had heard of Gregory's death. There was a moment she felt she was going to tell Nik everything right there and then. She was free, Gregory's death unlocked her freedom from their pact and she could tell the man she loved what she had done and why, how she was blackmailed into doing it, how Gregory found out she wanted to tell the truth and he kidnapped and then her mind quickly switched position. She remembered waking up from her coma and seeing Nik kissing Danielle. She saw them in a romantic way, enjoying themselves in a passion while she lay sleeping in a coma.

This hurt Asha. She felt as if he had been playing her for a fool, but in truth her own betrayal of him and his mother was where his love became a ghost that haunted him the whole time she lay in a coma. He loved her, but the passion had now been transferred to the new nurse in town -- Danielle Holten. His love for Asha was the type of friendship. 

"Ummm..” she stammered. “I don't know, I can't really remember much. It's all very blurry. When I think about what happened I think about how wonderful you and I were together and how much fun we were having and then suddenly, I can't remember anything. It just all goes dark. I would like to just got back to those happy times…together." She said, lying.

Nik smiled uncomfortably knowing they could not. 

"Asha, what's the last full thing you remember?" Nik asked.

Asha thought for a second pretended only to remember things that happened just before she was kidnapped and few months before. She said she didn't remember the birth, she didn't remember the baby dying, she couldn't recall why Gregory kidnapped her or the fire. All of it lies. She knew exactly what had happened, but the risk of telling Nik the truth meant losing him forever. 

"Are you sure? Are you sure you don’t remember?" He asked, hoping she'd finally spark the truth.

"I can’t." She replied quickly. “I’m sorry.”

It was a giant disappointment. He wanted the truth from her without telling her he already knew small details from what he had overheard her say to Gregory, but most of all he wanted to know where the boy was especially for his mother Aurora. For his family. 

But his hopes didn't die.

"Alright, well it's very early yet. We could always try and refresh your memory another time. I think that maybe once the new psychiatrist begins work here at Churchill Green, we could get you an appointment and perhaps they could finally help jog those memories." Nik said.

"I don't know. Maybe. I think I just want to get home. Soon." Asha replied.

"I know you do." Nik replied with a grin.

As he got up from the chair she grabbed his hand and pulled him clos. "Will you come with me?"

He didn't want to say No, it felt too harsh to break up with her so soon after she came out of her coma, but at the same time he didn't want to lead her on. 

On the other hand, he felt that if she did stick around her maybe he could jog her memory before the physiatrist could. If he were with her more hours in the day he could finally crack her lost memories and finally find his baby brother. 

"Let's see what we can arrange. I've been staying with my sister at her new house, but I think I can manage something." He answered.

"Evie's house?" She asked.

"Alot has changed since you've been asleep, Ash. Alot!" He smiled then began to pull away.

She pulled him back, pulled him close to see if he'd kiss her. Nik, unsure what to do thought quickly and kissed her on the forehead leaving Asha with her lips puckered and cool to the touch.

"I'll see you soon, ok?" Nik said. 

Asha nodded with disappointedly expressing a sad wilting face and watched Nik walk out of the rectangular room. Once she was alone she turned back to watch the nun in the garden that she had been admiring before Nik came in.

Asha noticed the her ripping the lush flowers out of the ground and tossing them into a pail. 

Shocked, Asha rolled her wheelchair to a side door that opened out to the garden and called to the nun, horrified that she’d rake out the plants she loved seeing her plant.

“Excuse me! Sister! Why are you doing that? They looked so pretty!” Asha shouted. 

“Oh!!” The nun exclaimed, startled by Asha’s sudden appearance. “I made such a huge mistake, Dr. Hoffman. I brought the wrong plant to be placed here. I say, if my head wasn’t attached I’d surly lose it, lord love me. This is nightshade, can you believe that!! Nightshade!”

Asha sat back in her chair “Nightshade?” 

The nun confirmed in her Welsh accent “I don’t know what I was thinking. It grows in these wonderful full bushes but placed in the wrong hands it can be deadly poisonous.” 

Asha’s mind raced for a split second. 

“Poisonous.” She thought to herself as Danielle’s face appeared in her mind. 

“I have to start fresh.” The nun added. 

“Start fresh. Yes.” Asha said as her mind floated to her first waking moment of Nik kissing Asha.

The nun would do anything to make sure patients enjoying the garden were protected from a poisonous plant even after enduring days of back bending work of planting, pulling up and replanting bushes. Just like she would do anything to keep Nikolas from the poison of the truth. 

She loved him more than anything and would never let him go. 

Not without a fight. And as she stood there, the word nightshade flowed in her mind giving her an idea. A potentially deadly idea. 

****

Cora, Lucas & Lear at Gramercy Café

At Gramercy Cafe, Lucas Mural and Cora Taylor sat at a three top table outside in the wonderful spring air. They were there waiting for Lear who was running late from an appointment at his office. Cora nervously wrung a pale yellow cloth napkin run her hands remembering the night before when she and Lucas snuck into Lear's office and found her adoption papers. Although Lear and Baxter had kept so many secrets from her she still felt bad about going behind Lear's back. 

Lucas, who was incredibly smitten with Lear, also felt a twinge of guilt for planting the idea in Cora's head and then helping her in to Lear's office.

"I don't want him to hate me for this." Lucas said. "But you deserved to know. It's your life."

"I'm nervous about how he'll react and ... what he might do." She said lifting a frosted glass of ice water to her lips.

As she sipped the cold liquid, Lucas motioned with his chin that Lear had arrived. 

"Sorry, I'm late." 

"Hi!" Lucas said, hugging his partner tightly. "We haven't been here long." 

"Coraline." Lear said with a smile has he reached over and kissed his biological sister on the cheek. "I'm glad you're here." 

"Thank you." She said sitting back down in her crush of what taffeta.

"So what is on the menu for today?" Lear wondered innocently. 

Lucas and Cora shot each other a look that Lear noticed.

"What?" He said.

"We have something to tell you." Lucas revealed. 

"What is it?" 

Cora took another sip of water as Lucas looked to her to fill in her brother. 

"You've been so busy with the trial and there were a lot of unanswered questions about things. Uh... Lear...umm, Lucas and I, well...." Cora couldn't say it, She couldn't tell him they broke into his office and took files. 

To help ease the confession along, Lucas removed the key to Lear's office from his jacket pocket and placed it on the table. Lear recognized it right away. Ever the keen lawyer he put two-and-two together in no time but played dumb. He wanted a clear confession to what they did and why. Lucas slowly slid the key over to Lear on the white table cloth. 

"We had to find answers." Cora said.

Lear didn't reply, he only looked over at Lucas. 

"She deserved to know! Everything! It was so hard for you to find a moment because you were so busy and, well, I had a key and I went with her to find what she needed to find." Lucas added

"And did you?" Lear wondered.

Cora nodded. "There are still a lot of questions." She said.

"Like?" 

Cora reached down under the table where she had the file hidden in a satchel. She pulled it out and opened it to the page where a strange signature had been written down that no one could read. 

"This signature." Cora said. "I can’t quite make it out, do you know who it was? How were they involved?" She asked.

"It could be anybody." Lear said. "People involved in this type of activity, selling babies to families who couldn’t legally adopt them, used any kind of name. All I know is that there was someone who helped our father connect with a family, the Murphys, who were desperate for a child." 

"Someone who worked at an orphanage or something?" Lucas wondered.

"Perhaps." Lear answered. "Are you thinking of finding this person?"

Cora sighed, "I think I'd like to know more about Father in the moment he reached out to them. I want to know what Mother thought. I want to know every detail possible. This person, if they're alive, may be the only person who can answer that for me. You and Baxter were too little to know all the details."

"Coraline, in my line of work I've learned that sometimes knowing everything in all the minute details isn't always the best strategy. You should let it go -- get back into your life and live it. You know who you really are now and now you have control. You can decided if you want to connect with your Lockwood Family, like me and Rebecca or not. I wouldn't go digging into something like this if you're not prepared to hear things that may upset you." Lear warned.

"I think I'm ready though." She said.

"Are you sure?" He asked. “Sometimes it’s better to let sleeping dogs sleep.”

Before Cora could answer a seagull swung over their table screeching and calling to his friends on other rooftops. She looked up and saw the gull staring back at her. His white feathers almost seemed to glow in the afternoon sun. For her it was a sign, she was going off into the right direction.

"I am, yes." She said. 

Lear sighed and took the paperwork they stole back into his hands and read it over. He stared at the signatures and over the years he had seen many strange ways of writing. People, it turns out, have a way of scribbling their signature something terrible when they want to conceal something. He always knew when his clients were guilty of something because their signatures were usually an inky mess on the paper. The less guilty of something someone was the clearer and more confident their signature.

This talent Lear had also made him an expert at being able to read these shrouded signatures, just like the one on the paper before him.

"Well the first name here is quite hard to read because it's been smudged. The ink must of been wet when they wrote their name and when they passed over to write their last name smudged their first name. The last name however is simple: RIDGEWAY." 

"Ridgeway." Lucas replied.

"It's a start." Lear said.

Cora thought about the rest of the day. Ridgeway. She'd heard it before. 

But where?

****

Aurora & Caspian 

Down the street from Gramercy Cafe at The Welshport Inn, Caspian poured himself a small drink while a guest of his flipped through a magazine on a sofa just in front of a large window. 

The guest, Aurora Ashby-Jordan.

Caspian had stayed at the hotel that night in protest to his wife Rebecca's attempt to keep his daughter Danielle from revealing to him he was really Viktor Holten. Rebecca saw Danielle's hopes of reuniting with Viktor as a threat to their marriage but in reality it only proved to Caspian that Rebecca was as devious as Lord family member. 

"You haven't said much since I got here." Aurora said, putting down the magazine on her lap. 

"There is a lot on my mind." He replied. 

"Caspian," She began before he interrupted her.

"Shouldn't it be Viktor?" He asked.

Aurora lifted a brow, it was the first time he had acknowledged his real name. "Should it??" She asked.

He took a sip of his drink.

"If you really want to find out who you really were then go to Danielle. You have the right to do that. Rebecca didn't have the right to hide the truth from you. She was wrong." Aurora said.

"What happens when Danielle discovers what happened to me? At this point I don't know if she knows. But she will. What will happen then?" Caspian said referring to the time he was possessed by a demon that called itself THE HUNTER.

"I can't answer that, Caspian. I can't tell you what she'll say or do and what she'll think. All you can do, really, is give it a chance and be honest with her." Aurora replied.

Caspian turned to her, and smiled. She was being so kind to him despite their awful past. When he was possessed he had come to Aurora's room at Tirymor House but the creature was able to shape-shift into the face and body of Aurora's then-partner Gregory Reins -- they made love and conceived a child. Aurora did not know it was Caspian when they made love, it felt like a rape, a strange odd rape. But She had forgiven Caspian not too long ago privately, he-- she understood-- was under the power of something grater than she could even imagine. 

His mind was not in his control. His actions too were done why the creature that took over his body the entire time they knew each other.

The fact remained, that Caspian (or Viktor) had a past with Aurora and a past with Danielle. The middle point was a single mad who had two lives that he had to somehow consolidate and refine. On his own terms not have it curated by his current wife, Rebecca Lockwood-Lord-Casador. 

 "You've been so kind to me during all of this. You don't have to be." He said. "Thank you."

"I think that what we've been through has been something that I couldn’t have imagine ever happening, and we have survived." She replied. "Which brings me to the issue at hand. Caspian, somewhere out there is our child. Our little boy. Once you find your footing with Danielle, your daughter, I hope that we can do the same for our missing son." She said.

"Of course!" Caspian said. "I want that so much too." 

"Asha Hoffman is the key. I think once we get her to tell us what happened that night, the night I gave birth things will move so much faster, and finally, in our direction." She said.

"Our direction." He smiled. "I do like the sound of that."

Aurora blushed. She saw him so differently now that he was more himself than how she met him. The mistrust she felt of him for so long had vanished, she felt a calmness inside of him, his voice soothing even like a soft rain pitter pattering on leaves of spring. 

He put down his drink and walked over to her and sat next to her on the sofa. He grabbed her hand and slowly leaned in. 

They hugged and then after a silent staring into each other’s eyes a long awaited kiss. 

When they came to a hug again, over her shoulder on the room wall was an ornately decorated mirror and when Caspian saw his reflection he smiled, but it was a smile that he did not have on his actual face. The refection was looking back at him but with a totally different facial expression than Caspian actually had. It was as if it were someone totally different in the refection not really him.

He gasped and quickly released Aurora from the hug. 

"What is it?" She exclaimed. "Are you ok? What happened?"

"I.... I don't know." He said. 

Then, in a split second he suddenly got one of his headaches. The headaches that had been plaguing him for weeks now since his fall in the caves. 

He winced with pain and placed both his pointer fingers and middle fingers on his temples massaging the pain in his head. The mirror, the face in the mirror was his and yet it was not his. The headache scorched his mind like a wildfire consuming all his thoughts. 

"Sit back down!" She said quickly bring him some water. 

He grabbed the cup and drank from it then dropped it to hardwood floor breaking it in half. 

Aurora yelped and stepped back as he lay down on the sofa with his feet up.

"Should I call Dr. Ward?" She asked.

"JUST GO!!!!" he shouted at her. "GET OUT!!!" 

"Caspian?" 

"GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE!!!!" He screamed at her.

Aurora, frightened and panicked grabbed her coat and left Caspian roaring with pain from his head on the sofa. He couldn't control his anger. There was a throbbing in his mind like a beating drum that would not stop and then, like the flick of a light switch he fell into a sweaty heap and slept. 

****

Rebecca confronts Christopher 

That evening, back at Welshport Hope, Rebecca had plenty to worry about. She sat vigil at Jacob's bedside as Celeste went home to be with her son Fabian. But she had other worries. Her min was on Caspian. She hadn't seen him in the days since he left Tirymor House angry with the truth of how she tried to keep Danielle from him. 

In the dimly lit private room where Jacob was recovering from his heart-attack, something else crossed her path to worry about. In the hospital room window looking in, was Christopher Wesley. The man with her son David's face, body and voice.

Rebecca's eyes locked on who she thought was her son...she had heard that this Christopher person looked like David and was the cause of the heart attack but she hadn't quite realized just how uncanny his appearance was. The stoic Rebecca stood up from her chair in the room and made a slight half turn, Jacob was still asleep.

She went out into the hallway and faced him.

"Go on." She said to him. He didn't know how to respond. "Tell me why you've lied to us all these years." She added.

"I don't know how to explain any of it, aside from only telling you that David died that night at the lighthouse. I’ve left him behind — he’s gone and I’ve found a new life away from my past." 

“So you thought.” His mother replied.

“Im sorry you can’t accept it. I really am.”

“Don’t you think I deserve better than that?” She asked. 

Christopher took a breath as memories of his Lord childhood flashed across his mind and how his own mother didn’t come to his defense about Sabrina’s death. 

“No.” He said softly.

Rebecca narrowed her eyes and slapped Christopher across the face.

"You have been gone for over 20 years. We thought you were dead. Twenty years, David, TWENTY! I prayed for you every single day. I cried, I mourned, I dreamed of you -- my son. My beautiful, beautiful son." Rebecca said, the anger slowly melting away her hardened exterior.

"I know you want to think that things are the same but they're not. David did die that night at the lighthouse and Christopher was born. My old life was painful, and I suffered and I don't want to go back to it. I had to move on to a new life and free myself. Do you know how horrible it was to know that the entire world thought I killed my wife? Most of all my own mother?” 

“David it wasn’t like that!” She countered. “We had no idea what happened, but Jacob…” 

“Yes, yes… but Jacob. I know about Jacob. He had even I me thinking that I took poor Sabrina’s life! But not for long. I began to remember, and all those years in London showed me no one came to my defense. You all just believed the worst lie Jacob ever told, and so I let myself die. Why not let the Lord family murderer vanish into the myth and let you all go one with your million dollar balls, fancy dinners and masquerades.” Chris said.

"So why are you here then? Why have you returned to us?"

Chris sighed then shrugged.”

"Ive been asking myself that same question since I’ve come him but in truth there was something in me that always knew I'd come back one way or another but when Genevieve found me it felt like a sign. I took one look at her and it all came back to me. How could it not? She looks exactly like Sabrina. I had to come home." He said.

"Is that the only reason?"

Chris remembered how keen his mother was at telling when he was lying. 

"Maybe some of it was to give it back to Jacob, all of the terrible things he did to me. I wanted to make him hurt too but... suffer as I did, but the plan just didn't come together. I think that was for the best." He explained.

Rebecca turned and looked into the small window into Jacob's room. Her two sons. Finally back in the same world together. Again. She had wanted this for so many years but thought it would never happen in this world. She'd have to wait until they were all on the other side to have their ghostly family reunion but now, there he was, they she was and there they were. The three of them together again after more than 20 years. 

"Have you seen Sebastian?" She asked quietly, her soft green eyes painfully aware of her grandson’s dark history.

Chris nodded.  

"He's so different." Chris said.

"He is." She replied. "But he's still your son. Never forget that, he is still you son no matter what." 

"What happened to him?" He asked, hoping for the truth.

Rebecca wasn't sure how far into the truth she'd go, and perhaps it wasn't the time to. She shook her head and placed her hand on his shoulder telling him that would have to wait. She would tell her son, Christopher, everything —someday soon.

"I'm glad you're back." She said softly. "Our family is almost intact again." 

Chris smiled and hugged his mother. Soon, they'd both tell each other the truth: about Sebastian, about his time in London, about where their worlds would meet again, what he'd do in the future. She hoped too that this was a sign that maybe they could all three put the past behind them and finally connect. 

It would take time — and it would be a battle — it would take a miracle.

****

Sebastian and Evie in Gabriel’s room 

As night arrived, Evie was putting Gabriel to sleep in his crib. She looked down at his beautiful face and his creamy peachy skin thanked God for having the little boy back in her life. She had been though so much and felt worth it all to finally be with her little boy again. 

As she watched her son, she felt a cool breeze bush across the back of her neck. She turned to see that the little boy's window was open. She could see the crashing waves far off in the distance. As she reached over to pull in the window and close it she felt a hand touch hers. 

Startled, she turned back and it was Sebastian, her former husband and Gabriel's father. 

"What are you doing here?" She whispered.

Sebastian smiled and turned to Gabriel in the crib. "I came to see him." Sebastian whispered. 

Evie moved her arms around her body hugging herself. She wished Sebastian had told her he was coming. Matthew was in the other room. She had invited him for tea.

As the two parents went into the other room, Matthew stood up at the sight of Sebastian. 

"You should have told me." She whispered.

"Why?" He asked.

"Listen, Sebastian, I think it's' time you know that Matthew and I are not seeing each other, but we are still friends. I care for him and he's in the other room. I don't think the two of you should be around each other. Not yet." Evie said pulling Sebastian into another room where they could speak louder.

"I don't have anything against Matthew." Sebastian replied. "Does he have something against me?"

Evie rolled her eyes. "This is not about you and him, it's about me. I want to take some time to raise Gabriel and be on my own. We've all been through so much that I don't know where or who I am right now. Matthew understands, I hope you can too." 

"I don't understand. Why would you say this to me? I feel like you're telling me you don't want me to come around here." Sebastian replied. 

"No, not at all. But are you able to see us as just Gabriel's parents and not husband and wife?" 

Sebastian thought for a second. "I want us to be together. We deserve it. Jacqueline is gone and we deserve that, don't we?" He asked.

"I need to find myself Sebastian."

Sebastian stood there in the small quaint library she had created in her new home. He realized the downfall a life in the shadows finally meant. Everyone in the world would move on with their lives. Grow up. Grow Old. Find Friends. New Loves. New Enemies, but for Sebastian his world was frozen in time. He'd never age. He'd never die -- naturally. Sebastian was seeing his world erode right in front of his eyes. And it hurt his heart.

"Evie please, we should go away --  away together and never come back to this place. I could keep you safe! I would! We'll take Gabriel and everything will be fine, can't you see? It can work. We can be a family somewhere far, far away from here." 

"What? No! I already told you I can't do that. My family is here now. I can't just leave that's not what I want." She said.

"And Matthew is here." Sebastian said suddenly suspecting Evie might not be telling him the truth about her relationship. "At night."

Evie lifted a brow "We're friends Sebastian. We just went through a horrible ordeal locked away fearing for our lives. That's all. Now you should go. Go back into Gabriel's room and say good night. You can come back tomorrow." 

"No." Sebastian said right off.

"Sebastian, please -- " She said before he interrupted. 

"If this is about me -- and what I am. I can tell you that I've been good! I can now control myself and I don't want to take the lives of people. I swear to you Evie, if we leave Welshport - together - we'll all be so happy. Together!" 

"Sebastian, stop, please." She said.

Sebastian's heart broke. He felt as if she only saw what she had been through. She hadn't thought about what he had been through. He had saved Filipe, he had helped save Johnathon from Jacqueline and even though there was so many things that had happened that were awful, he knew that he could still provide for her and save her and their beautiful boy. 

"I'll come back tomorrow night." He said. 

She smiled politely and once again, her body language showed something else, she was completely over Sebastian, the way they were. She loved Sebastian, but only as the father of her son, not as a romantic partner. 

She wanted to be independent. She wanted to find herself again; the woman she was supposed have become before she became the wife of infamous Sebastian Lord.

As Sebastian moved into Gabriel's room and said goodnight, Matthew stood in a hidden area in the shadows. He had heard the entire conversation. 

The worry was slashed all over his face. 

Evie went back into the living room only to find just the two cooling tea-cups. 

Matthew had gone, without saying a thing. He'd followed Sebastian to finally confront him and end their strange back and forth tug-of-war with Evie as their rope.