Disclaimer: I do not own Jane The Virgin. I am simply a Cordueva fan who has decided to write her own endgame. This story picks up where the season finale left off. This is how I would want the season to play out. Fair warning, this story will contain spoilers so read at your own risk.

Prologue – 1 minute after Jane and Michael come face to face (Jane POV)

It feels like I am having a bad acid trip. My entire body is suddenly clammy with sweat. I can't get enough air into my lungs now matter how much I gulp down. My heart is pounding a crazy, staccato rhythm, the rapid beats echoing in my ears. And my legs…my legs feel boneless, jellied and trembling. I'm surprised my knees don't buckle. I'm torn between vomiting and bursting into tears. I'm actually afraid I might do both. Yep, this definitely feels like an acid trip.

Now, of course, I don't know the first thing about acid or how it makes you feel when you're riding the high. In fact, the closest I've ever come to an illicit drug was a secondhand marijuana high I received at a 12th grade party. So, I can't definitively say that what I'm feeling presently is comparable to an acid trip but I have to imagine that the sensation is pretty close.

There is a fuzzy border framing my world right now. It's as if the backdrop of Rafael's apartment has fallen away and all I can see, all I can process, is my once dead husband standing six feet in front of me. I don't feel the floor. I don't even feel my body.

It's as if my world has gone off kilter, tipping and tipping and taking me with it on a mad, disorienting tumble. I'm drowning in muddled emotion, unable to verbalize a single word and yet I can feel myself stumbling forward, plucked along by an invisible thread…closer and closer until Michael and I are close enough to touch, until I'm close enough to appreciate the startling clarity of his blue, blue eyes.

I drink in the changes I see, the gaunt planes of his face, the fuzzy tufts of blond scruff that conceal his cheeks and chin, the guarded posture that was once uncharacteristic for him. None of it is like the Michael I remember and yet, as I look at him, the Michael I remember is all I see. I can hardly believe that he is standing in front of me right now, alive and breathing, more aloof than I remember but still so invitingly familiar. This face is the face that has haunted my dreams for five, long years…a face that I never thought I would see again.

There had once been a time when I couldn't imagine my life without him, when I had believed that we would be together forever. That certainty had sadly been replaced with the realization that forever couldn't be ours…at least not in this life, and that I had no choice but to go on without him. But, it appears, I had been wrong about that too and now here we are.

It is little wonder that this moment feels like a dream, like an hallucination that I have conjured up in my desperate imagination. I'm almost half convinced that I have, that I'm having complete mental breakdown in the middle of Rafael's apartment right now. Surely that possibility is more plausible than my dead husband standing less than two feet away. And so I have to prove to myself that I'm not nuts and, before I can talk myself out of it, I'm stretching out my hand to touch him.

His response is immediate and visceral. He recoils from me like a wounded animal, staring at me with cautious eyes brimming with mistrust. I drop my hand and falter back a step, devastated and confused by his reaction. Surprisingly, Rafael is the one to answer the unspoken question poised on my lips.

"He doesn't remember you, Jane."

The statement, flat and brusque, leaves me emotionally disoriented yet again. I throw a staggered glance back at Rafael, unable to grasp the enormity of his simple explanation. I even choke out a short, hysterical laugh before I begin mindlessly babbling my confusion aloud. "What is this? What the hell is happening right now? Am I crazy? Am I going crazy? What is happening, Rafael?" My voice breaks as the tears come full force, blurring my vision and burning acridly in the back of my throat. They garble my words so that I sound unintelligible even to my own ears.

"Is this Michael? Is this really Michael? I don't understand what's happening! What do you mean he doesn't remember me?"

It is at that point that, at last, Michael finally speaks and I hear his voice aloud for the first time in five years. The overwhelming emotion of the moment is almost enough to send me to my knees. I even forget to breathe.

"Is…is this her?' he asks Rafael with a degree of hesitation, "Is she the one you told me about?"

"Yes," Rafael answers evenly, "This is Jane. This is your wife."

My eyes have been bouncing back and forth between them during this brief exchange but land on Michael as he expels a shuddering breath. I regard him steadily as I wait in anticipation for his response to that. He must read some silent plea in my expression because he regards me with a small, sad shake of his head. The gesture confirms my worst fear and yet I still can't stop myself from asking him anyway. I need to hear him say the words even if they are the last words I want to hear him say.

"Michael?" His name on my tongue feels like coming home and I have to say it over and over again because I've missed saying it so much. "Michael, do you really not remember who I am?" I ask him in a tiny voice, "Do you really not remember what we are to each other?"

It's not necessary for him to reply. I can see the truth in his eyes and the answer was there long before I ask the question. There is absolutely no recognition in his expression. I can see sadness and grief and a profound loss of hope and even a reluctance to disappoint me but I don't see affection or longing or love. I don't see Michael. He is looking at me like I am a complete stranger. In that moment, it feels like I'm losing him all over again, like he is dying all over again but, this time, right in front of me. I turn away from him quickly to conceal the sobs that are threatening to erupt.

"I'm sorry," I hear him say from behind me, "I wish I could tell you something different. I wanted it to be different. I wanted to remember. That's why I agreed to come here. I thought you could help me."

His words cause me to stiffen, suspicion suddenly quelling my sorrow. I pivot slowly to face him once again. "You agreed with who to come here?"

He hitches his chin towards Rafael and it doesn't escape my notice that the latter seems to have difficulty meeting my eyes. I round on Rafael then, suddenly seething with rage as I fully grasp what Michael's admission means. "How long have you known?" I spit and he actually flinches in response.

"Jane, please don't overreact. Let me explain…"

"Oh you can explain," I scoff bitterly, "You can explain how you knew that Michael was alive and you didn't tell me? You can explain why you let me go on thinking he was dead, that I would never see him again? You can explain that?" With every accusation I hurl, he winces as if he is being pummeled with fists instead of words. But I am immune to his guilt, his sorrow, his fear in that moment. All I can feel is anger and hatred and confusion. "Tell me the truth! How long have you known?"

"Not long."

"And what does that mean? A week? A month?" An insidious possibility creeps up into my being when I fearfully ask him, "Have you known the entire time, Rafael? Did you keep him from me on purpose?"

Rafael appears genuinely hurt that I would even consider such a thing and his disgust and disappointment are evident in his reply. "Of course not! How could you even think such a thing, Jane? I'm as blindsided as you are!"

I raise my chin to a haughty angle, refusing to be cowed with guilt when I have nothing to feel guilty about. "Did you know last night?" His dark eyes fall away at the question. "Then no, Raf, you definitely weren't blindsided like me."