After a mostly sleepless night I savoured every drop of the good strong coffee Jarod had made. The baby was awake, although still too small for me to feel it kick yet there was definetly movement. I rested my hand where I had last felt it, feeling oddly protective. The woman I had been hadn’t wanted a child under any circumstances, but the woman I was now hadn’t had much of a choice.

The problem was, that she was still me. Like her I could be extremely mean without being able to pretend that I did not like it. We were irritable and slightly neurotic, sarcastic and sharp. I wore her clothes and lived her life, knowing that I was her- but not able to find the connection. I felt lost.

“Would you like some breakfast?” Jarod placed a plate containing an assortment of sweet, calorie-loaded breakfast foods on the coffee table in front of me.

“Newsflash, Jarod. I might be pregnant but I am not planning on gaining a ton,” I snapped at him, although I knew that he was meaning well. Jarod sighed and sat down on the couch facing the one I had stretched out on.

His gaze lingered on my revealing neckline for a little too long, then he looked me in the eye. Probably the only place on my body he could look at without it seeming suspicious.

“Staring at me?” I asked casually, willing him to lose his composure for a while. Maybe if he dropped his give a damn-attitude I could make him listen to me.

“Anything for me to see?” he responded with a cold overtone that was probably meant to warn me not to go down that road. Since my situation could not get any worse, I ignored the warning.

I opened my mouth to hurl another thinly disguised insult at him, when suddenly a name appeared inside my head, coming from nowhere.

Thomas Gates.

“Thommy…” I whispered which made Jarod’s head snap up.

“What did you say?” he asked, alarmed.

“Who is he? Thomas Gates?” I asked, confused about which different ways my memories used to suddenly and unexpectedly return to me. I should have kept my mouth shut about it, though, but since it had hit me so hard, I had no means to ban it from my mind. Inside me, emotions started bubbling to the surface and I knew from what little experience I had gathered, that it was usually emotions first, before the actual memories came back.

Jarod got up very quickly and turned his back at me, hiding some sort of emotion from me.

“What is it?” I asked, forgetting our fight, aching for some information, lurching to my feet as well. The feeling I associated with this Thomas Gates was one of horrible grief, loss, desperation, shock and also… fear.

“Did he die?” I asked what seemed to match the feelings associated.

Jarod turned back around, fury leaving its ugly marks on his face. I was too shocked to make sense of it until he spoke: “You loved him, Parker. How dare you use him now to try to manipulate me?”

His voice rose with every word and although I knew that he wasn’t a violent man and wouldn't hurt me, I felt the sudden urge to get some distance between us. He still didn’t believe me. Not one bit. I should have known.

Jarod stepped forward and grabbed my shoulders. I winced, fear flooding me like hot lava, consuming the annoyance I had felt before.

“Can’t you finally stop it, Parker? Can’t you just stop ruining every bit of respect I still hold for you? What has become of you?”

“Jarod, I told you, I…”

He shook my shoulders. It didn’t hurt and was rather meant to bring me to my senses, but suddenly I began feeling sick and dizziness overwhelmed me in one swift unexpected motion. I must have groaned as the pain followed.

Parker doubled over, her arms around her stomach, and hissed in pain. She was as white as a sheet and when she looked up I could see terror in her eyes.

Suddenly I was painfully aware of my hands grabbing her shoulders and I let them slide down her forearms to calm her.

I carefully lowered her back onto the couch and sat down next to her. She gasped, pressing her hand against her stomach.

“Is it the baby?” I asked, my heart racing with concern.

She nodded, slowly, then grimaced in pain again.

“It hurts… so much… Jarod,” she finally managed, which only fueled my worry. I carefully removed her arms from her stomach and made her lay back.

Sweat had broken on her forehead and she buried her face in my sleeve, reaching for my hand at the same time.

I squeezed her hand reassuringly, placing my other hand on her stomach, still trying to figure out whether it would be necessary to rush her to the hospital or whether I could take care of this situation myself.

She suddenly relaxed for a second, then tensed again and began to cry. Her shoulders were shaking with sobs, her fingers clawed into my arm and it took me a while to understand what it was that she kept repeating between tortured sobs: “I lost my baby… oh god, Jarod. I lost my baby…”

It would have been the classic understatement to say that Project Cassandra was interesting. It was actually groundbreaking. And it perfectly explained everything that had seemed completely pointless before. As usual with this nuthouse called the Centre, at first things had gone awry, heads had been rolling but then they had actually set in motion what might as well be the Centre’s greatest shot so far.

The only problem was, that the key player had vanished.

I stood in the middle of my father’s deserted office, surveillance system disabled and the file that would make my career skyrocket in my hands.

I had always suspected that there was a hidden agenda. Just getting someone like my sister pregnant to the Pretender was simply too flawed a plan to actually be thought up by the Centre.

We like it a bit more twisted, you know. Long, complicated plans that we villains can explain to a suffering victim in great detail… well, you get the picture.

Jarod would surely come after the kid, maybe even after the mother, because –let’s face it- we all knew that Broots wasn’t the only one with an unhealthy infatuation for my dear sister. And I am not talking about yours truly here…

Anyhow, it would have just been too much hassle with the chances of everything actually working according to plan being so slim.

Flipping through the file I realized that the actual plan was brillant in its simplicity, even if it contained blackmailing Miss Parker into oblivion. Yes, that might have been the only risk in it. That it all was up to Miss Parker’s participation.

I closed the file and slid it into my briefcase. If I found her and brought her back, I would indeed be able to finally get the recognition I had always deserved. And more. Much more.

My hand was still on her stomach and I could feel the movements of her baby that was probably being stirred by its mother’s almost hysterical state.

“Parker…” I said soothingly. “Parker! Your baby is just fine… Can’t you feel it?”

She hesitated, then looked at me as if she had never seen me before.

“What?” she whispered, tears still glistening in her eyes, her breaths short and ragged as if being pulled from a trance.

I carefully pulled her into me and held her head to my shoulder. Her arms came around me and for a second she stilled, her breath slowing.

“Are you still in pain?” I asked her, running my hand up and down her back.

“No…” she whispered, sounding surprised, and my heart broke at the sound of her still terrified voice.

“See? You will be okay.”

I released her and she only reluctantly let go while I carefully laid her back on the couch, examining her as well as I could, detecting no signs of anything wrong with either her or our daughter.

The only thing that worried me, was how dazed she looked and acted. Each time it took her a few seconds before she responded to any of my questions after which her gaze wandered off again and she became largely oblivious to her surroundings.

When I had finished, I wrapped a blanket around her body and although I knew better, did not resist her when she snuggled up to me.

I only came to very slowly. The pain had subsided as quickly as it had come, but it was strangely difficult for me to pay attention to what Jarod was doing or asking me. It felt as if his voice came from very far away and although I really wanted to pay attention, I just couldn’t gather enough concentration to do so.

There were other voices in my head that confused and frightened me. A small female voice that kept repeating that I had lost my child, a male voice, sounding vaguely familiar, telling me that it hadn’t been my fault and overlaying all of them my own crying for a child Jarod’s distant voice kept telling me I had not lost.

I felt hot and feverish and yet I was grateful for the warmth of the blanket and the embrace Jarod enveloped me in.

As soon as I had calmed down a little, once again images flooded my head in a wave and although it was a relief to finally be able to tie my emotions to images, it was painful.

The first thing I realized was that the excrutiating pain I had experienced a mere five minutes ago had actually been a vivid memory that I had not recogized right away. I remembered loving arms around me and a stubble that scratched against my cheek as I was kissed. I remembered turning around and smiling up into the face of a tall good-looking man in a red flanel shirt. I could almost feel the gentle kiss we shared and heard his whispered words in my mind: “I love you Parker.”

Then I remembered finding him on my porch, slumped with blood running from his temple, causing a dark red trail down to his neck. I remembered taking him into my arms, crying, running back to the house… I remembered an ambulance taking him away, a doctor confirming his death on the scene. I remembered finding out about the Centre having killed him and the fruitless search for the one person who had taken my happy life away.

Unlike the last time I’d had a flash of memories returning to me, these weren’t unrelated and did not leave any gaps. I knew that I had been devastated with grief and after I had not been able to take revenge for his death, I had gone back to work, pretending that everything was fine.

Once again I had been able to shut the grief away, to isolate it in a very secret place of my heart where I did only go when I was on my own. During those weeks after his death I had been unable to eat and had lived largely on coffee although Sydney and Broots had been trying their best to take care of me. Of course I had not let them. And then as if it had always been there, the memory of the pain fell swiftly into its place in the jigsaw puzzle of the whole mess.

I had been standing in my office only half-listening to Sydney while I was once again trying to fight off the nausea that was plaguing me constantly, when a wave of pain had shot through my lower abdomen, sending me straight to my knees. The rest of it was blurry which I did not blame my amnesia for, but rather my being only semi-conscious during the moment itself.

I remembered the cold, crisp feeling of the sheets in the Centre infirmary, the doctors denying me the wish to tell me what had actually happened and why Sydney’s hands had been covered in blood after he had carried me here. Finally, a little nurse, obviously new and not aware of how evil a place she worked for, had told me that I had suffered a miscarriage, lost a baby I hadn’t even known I was carrying.

I remembered sending her out, then realizing that I had just lost everything that I’d still had from Thommy.

And I had been so sure that it had all been my fault. I shouldn’t have even considered going to Portland with Thomas, should have taken better care of myself, should have listened to the symptoms…

Now that I felt slightly detached from it all, while it was just playing inside my head like a terrifyingly real movie starring me, I realized that it hadn’t been my fault, I had lost the child.

Still, I remembered the feeling of guilt weighing down upon me, the feeling of loss startling me awake in the middle of the night and the emotional and physical pain.

Now I forced myself to take a moment, to breathe deeply, to make myself aware of the fact that I was in the present, that I was safe with Jarod and that I needed to stay focused on saving Broots, Debbie and Sydney.

Few people are born fighters. And what do they say? We are born innocent. It is only later in life, when we experience pain and heartache, betrayal and letdown, that some of us are shaped into fighters. Feeling like wounded animals we lash out at those who hurt us or those who are weaker although we known that inflicting more pain will not get us out or our myseries.

I have long forgiven Miss Parker for humiliating me constantly because I know that her pain is greater than I could ever imagine.

There are lives shaped by loss and if there isn’t anything good that can help keeping the balance, the scales drop and we fall.

Miss Parker has fallen long ago with nothing to reach out to.

Now I realize that amnesia is actually the best thing that could have happened to her.

She is a victim of the unfortunate life she was born into, but she refuses to be. She wants to be a winner. And she does have what it takes. She is beautiful and intelligent, educated and wealthy, but what really counts has always failed her: Human contact, love and friendship.

Although she refuses to admit it, she knows about it as well as we all do. But her pride will never allow her to act on it. She refuses to be a victim but she cannot possibly be a winner, so she is all she can be: A fighter.

And what a hell of one.

As I sit next to Thomas Gates in a car, speeding down a deserted highway with only the headlights illuminating the wet street I take a deep breath. It feels as if the street was moving under us while the car remained motionless.

I feel the movement the engine creates and imagine it to be energy that flows into my body, strenghtening me not physically, but emotionally.

I have never been a fighter. I have never been a winner, but I am not half the victim everyone makes me out to be.

I clench my fist in my lap, looking at Gates’ face that looks so hard in the dim light, the edges more pronounced than I remember, his eyes in the shadows, telling me nothing.

He wants Parker. But don’t we all?

I look up at the sound of Raines’ oxygen tank on the floor and although I have not been issued a formal warning, I instinctively know that I am about to meet my end.

The Sweeper standing next to him is carrying a gun as leisurely as a cup of coffee.

Raines’ eyes lack all expression and I wonder whether he tunes out of situations like this, just like I have all these years.

I dare not to move, knowing that resistance is futile and will only worsen the pain. Let them get this over with quickly.

They say that pictures of your life will flash at you before you die, that you see everybody whom you have loved. It does not happen and I realize that I didn’t really have a life.

I have never loved Catherine although I really tried. My first goal in life have always been money and power but I don’t regret that. It is who I am. These two factors are the only things that shape me into someone.

I don’t know why I have never been able to feel. Maybe it goes back to my childhood when terrible things happened whose memories remain blurred inside me. I must have been able to experience emotions a long time ago, because I can remember how it feels.

I have always found it handy to lack remorse, compassion or grief, but I have to admit, that I did miss out on love.

I never loved my wife, I never loved my children.

I think of my daughter whom I have always tried to shape into my mirror-image. I imagine her loving smile, her head against my chest, my hand stroking her hair with my heart feeling as if it was thinly layered with ice- functional but unable to love.

I remember being envious with my own wife because she could love and I could not, even though the love was for me.

I think of my daughter this awkward Christmas, sitting on the sofa in my living-room, next to her brother, slowly and not consciously caressing the barely detectable swell of her stomach.

“You failed,” Raines announces as if I hadn’t known it. “Your daughter is gone and we both know this was your last chance to prove yourself. The Triumvirate has ordered your immediate removal.”

I look into his eyes, for the first time actually realizing, that they are dead. Like mine.

I don’t think I am afraid as the Sweeper’s finger advances upon the trigger.

I close my eyes and suddenly what has seemed lost all my adult life drowns me. The image of my daughter appears in front of my eyes as I congratulate her on her high-school diploma with the usual reserve. I feel so proud that she has graduated top of her class, now. I didn’t, back then.

I can almost feel her pain at my rejection and there is remorse in my heart.

I remember the softness of her hair, of Catherine’s hair, the way she begged for my attention, the many times she showed me that despite everything, she loved me.

My throat tightenes with the click of the trigger but it is not my impending death that causes it.

Oh Angel, what have I done to you?

My feelings are back but they don’t have time to haunt me as I feel the bullet hit. My last breath is drawn as my gaze focuses one last time on the framed picture my secretary has silently put up on my desk many months ago. My daughter smiles back at me. One of those rare smiles, but never quite reaching her eyes.

There’s a drop of blood suddenly running down the glass and I understand that it is my own.

That’s when everything goes black and I fall into the welcoming arms of death.

I was glad that I was alone in my room, resting on my bed, when it came again. It was a peculiar sensation that began with a sense of alarm that grew until I found myself suddenly and unexpectedly at the verge of panic, then it ebbed away, leaving only the equally terrifying and calming certainty that something had happened.

I could feel pain being inflicted in every fiber of my body, but I knew at the same time that it wasn’t mine just as the pain this morning had been nothing more than a memory.

Suddenly a stray scene returned to my memory like a concealed person stepping out of the shadows.

My father, congratulating me on my high-school diploma that I hold in my hand.

It was curious that I could feel his emotions as well as my own.

I did know now that he had actually been proud of me but I had been convinced that he didn’t care. I remembered looking into his eyes and finding them dead. His eyes morphed into those of Mister Raines and his voice rang out inside my head.

“You are a failure.”

His words became my father’s words as I suddenly remembered the last bit about my losing Thomas’ child. My father stepping into my infirmary room as I am trying to eat for the first time in days.

His eyes are dark and my stomach clenches as he says: “You lost it. You lost our future. You are a failure, Angel.”

I cannot make sense of his words. He does not like Thomas, why would he want me to give birth to his child? But dread overwhelms me before I can pursue the question any further.

I remembered the odd feeling, the anger and the pain that had been building inside me, raging to be let out whenever Jarod jokingly called me a failure in the kitchen back in those blissful weeks we had spent together and I close my eyes, trying to block it all out.

I put my arm over my eyes and clench my fist. There is no time for sentimentality now, I decided and sat up slowly.

I took a deep breath, then crossed the room for the door. The memories were returning to me in shorter intervals now, but it is still not fast enough for my liking. I needed to be my old self to get through this, I understood now.

I needed my memories back. Desperately.

The DSA on Broots desk had been unlabelled so it had caught my interest. I couldn’t quite remember why I, whom had never been one to nose around other people’s things, had spotted it anyway.

A scene began playing in front of me and while I watched Miss Parker being threatened with the killing of the only people she could have called friends, had she been so inclined and finally surrender, I felt a terrible sense of dread rise inside me.

I had not only misjudged her and done her wrong, I had also failed her.

But not anymore.