This is an idea I've had floating around for awhile, and I decided the only way it was going to work was to be an AU fic.

The entire back story will be told in flashbacks, of sorts. Anything in italics is a "flashback".

I'll do a slight disclaimer: I am not advocating teenage sex nor am I promoting it. It's a fact of life, and that's how its dealt with in this fic. That said, hope you like.

Chapter 1

"I'm so sorry for you loss, Miss Kane."

She nodded softly offering the man a complementary smile, "Thank you," She blew out on a whisper as moved across the room to take her seat.

"I'm sorry that we have to do this today," The man said, shaking his head as he walked around his desk, "Your mother made it very clear that she wanted this done after her funeral was over."

Erica nodded, shifting uncomfortably in her chair. She hated this, everything about it. She hated that death came and went and the world kept moving, at least for everyone else it did. For her time stood still. Left her in that moment, all those years ago when her heart was buried in the soft ground next to the spot where her mother now laid.

"Miss Kane?" The man said back to her, "Did you have any questions before we begin?"

She shook her head, pretending she heard him, pretending she cared, pretending that anything her mother may have left her in her will was going to fix what had been broken most of her life.

"Alright, well you know as Mrs. Kane's only surviving relative that all of her financial assets are left to you, which includes stocks, bonds, investments," The lawyer began, and Erica nodded.

"Yes, she and I went over this last year when she first got sick. I was under the impression that all of this was a formality," She said, a bit more bitingly then she meant too.

He nodded, 'Yes, well, there is something else, I mean your mother did leave you something else that I don't believe you've discussed."

"Oh?" She asked, raising an eyebrow at him, "I was told she and I had everything covered. All money and assets transferred."

He nodded and then swallowed back a hard breath before pushing out his next set of words, "I don't think you mother wanted you to know of this until after she'd passed."

"Know of what?" She asked, watching the man shake his head.

"Please, just watch the video, let you mother explain."

She shook her head, and opened her mouth to speak when he flipped on the TV next to his desk.

Her mother appeared a second later. She was sitting in her favorite chair at their old summer home in New York. She hadn't been there since…

"If you're watching this," Mona started softly, "Then I've passed and my Will is being dictated to you," Mona paused for a few seconds, leaning back in her chair. "I want to start by telling you how much I love you, Erica. How much I have always loved you. From the moment you came kicking and screaming into my world, I knew there was nothing I wouldn't do for you…" Her voice trailed off at the last of her words, and her face grew serious, "A parents job is to protect their child. Always do what they feel is best for them. Always," She pushed out, her eyes beginning to well with tears, "I know you're probably wondering what this about. Why I chose this place…" She trailed off, falling silent for a few minutes,

She wanted to scream back at the TV "Why did you mother? WHY?" Of all the places in the world why that one? She blinked back tears and shook her head, waiting for her mother to continue.

"Sometimes we do things, that at the time, they seem right….justified," She said, nodding, trying to convince herself as much as her daughter, "That last night that we were here…"

"Shut it off," Erica pushed out quickly, shaking her head, "I don't want to hear anymore."

"You have too," The man replied, shaking his head, "I know this is hard, but you need to hear what she has to say."

"I know you probably want to turn the television off and run away from this as fast as possible, I don't blame you," She breathed, "But what I have to say, you need to hear, you deserve to hear," Mona took a deep breath and let her eyes fall shut, as Erica fingered tears from her cheeks, her mind spinning as to why her mother was making her go through this, "You had know way of ever knowing this, but when you fought me that morning….because you so close to you due date and you didn't want to go into labor in the middle of nowhere…that you would go into labor that night. I made sure of it."

Erica gasped hard and breathless, the air in her lungs seeming to disappear as she struggled for a breath.

"That's why I took you to see Dr. Fulton that morning," Mona started, "I told you it was to make sure that you knew you'd be alright to spend the weekend at the cabin. That was a lie. "

"Oh," Erica gasped out through a gut wrenching cry, her tears falling hard and fast.

"He gave you drugs, that shot that you were told was part of a regular series, it wasn't. It was a shot filled with labor inducing drugs."

She gagged back a sob, and leaned forward, a painful cry sliding from between her closed lips, "Turn it off…please, I can't…" She begged through her tears. Her mind spun, racing through the events of that day, the whys, the how's, the ending result that until ten seconds ago she'd believed was out of her control.

"I know this is hard," The lawyer forced out, his own voice cracking a bit as he nodded, "but you have to hear this."

"It was all planned," Mona forced out, on the verge of tears, "From the moment you found you were pregnant, we starting putting it all together.:"

Erica choked back a gag, her lunch spinning in her stomach. Her entire body shook, and her tears flowed freely, as she tried to keep herself there, listen, understand what her mother was doing, why she was saying these things.

"David's family didn't want the two of you together anymore then your father and I, but you already know that. We let it go when you got engaged. There was no way a fifteen year old and a sixteen year old would ever make it to the alter. When you told us you were pregnant that next year, we couldn't…it wasn't like the wedding. You'd be tied together forever. Our families…our fortunes, all tied into each other with your child."

She did gag at that, her body wrecked with sobs and tears as she tried to keep it together, tried to hear her mother out. Tried to figure out why her mother was sitting there, telling that the pain she felt…the ache, the want, the loss…was all her doing.

"Vanessa and I decided that you couldn't have that baby. David would be eighteen by the time it was born, and we knew you two would never sign over your rights. So we had to think of something else, devise another plan…."

Erica pushed out a few shaky breaths, trying to pull herself together, trying to fall part, trying not to get lost in the pain. She was seventeen again, all of the sudden. Sitting on the floor in the middle of her daughters nursery…her daughters empty nursery, trying to will herself to take another breath, willing herself to keep going.

"The only way we were going to get that baby from you two was if you thought it was dead," Mona pushed out the last of the words hard and fast, trying to get it over and done with as quickly as possible. "When you have that kind of money, faking a babies death is easier then one might think." Her mother paused to fight back tears and Erica froze.

Her while world stilling, just like it had the moment in her room at the house on the lake after she'd woken up to the news that her daughter was dead. She blinked past a few tears, and drew in then released a heard breath, her mothers words just starting to float through her head.

"I had Dr. Fulton drug you. And we went to the cabin. Vanessa slashed David's tires, made sure that he didn't get any calls that night," She offered reflectively, "Dr. Fulton delivered your daughter. It was all routine, you would have never thought anything of it."

"Until he told me how much blood I lost," Erica blew into the room and at the TV the realization of it all beginning to set in.

"Until he told you how much blood you lost, that he needed to put you to sleep, keep you sedated while he tried to stop the bleeding. It was a lie, that's why David couldn't have been there, he would have known."

"Oh god," She forced out, as she fought for breath again. Her mind was still racing, trying desperately to put this all together, to understand what her mother was getting at.

"You went to sleep, and we…" Mona choked on the words, her eyes drifting shut again as tried to get the words out, "Vanessa, she took the baby. It was a quick transfer, she and I had already signed the papers. We told them you and David wanted to give the baby up, gave us your consent, but asked that we handle the rest of the details. You needed our consent anyway, so no one asked any questions."

Erica choked on her tears, and gasped for breath, the raw agony of that night still so fresh in her mind and heart that she could quell it or the this new betrayal, this new…

"You woke up and we told you the baby was dead," Mona finally pushed out, letting the words fall out hard and fast.

Erica drew in hard gulp of air and shook her head, tears staining her cheeks, "My…my…baby…"

"I don't anything about her adoption. The family. Any of that. That was Vanessa's area. All I know is that she went to a good home."

"Oh my god," She breathed, the words shaking as they slipped from her lips, "my baby's alive?" She wasn't sure if it was still a question of if sixteen years of visiting her daughters grave with teddy bears and roses was still to much to get past.

"She's alive. And a teenager," Mona smiled softly, "She's about the age you were when you had her." Mona's voice softened, "I imagine she's quite beautiful. She had David's eyes but her facial structure was yours."

Erica covered her mouth, gasping and crying, shaking forcefully as the words finally clicked in her mind.

"I know that Vanessa kept all the paperwork, since she's dead, I'd imagine David has," Mona offered, "Though, if what I heard was true, he probably just put them away and didn't bother to look at them."

"My baby," She breathed, as she swiped at her tears, "David," She pushed out a second later, "Oh my god…" She said the last of her words getting lost in a hard rush of air as it all hit her and the world went black. She vaguely heard the sound of her mothers lawyer jumping from his chair in an attempt to catch her before she fainted to the floor.

To be continued