Disclaimer: See prologue.


The steady sound of feet hitting the pavement and freshly mowed grass were the only sounds and smells Elizabeth Banks was processing on her morning run; or at least that's what she was trying to tell herself. Unfortunately, car horns in Los Angeles traffic, screaming children and smog were all beginning to creep into her awareness with each passing moment. A glance at her watch, then her pedometer, told her she had been running for an hour or seven miles.

"Shit," she muttered, glaring at the pedometer. "So much for that six-minute mile theory."

Shaking her head she broke back into a light jog and left Barnsdall Park, continuously slowing her jog as she made a right onto Hollywood Boulevard until she was fully cooled down and was walking into the Starbucks on the corner of Hollywood and Vermont Avenue. The doorbell chimed as she walked inside and the sight of the crowded cafe elicited a grown from the redhead. Ten minutes later she was holding a venti black tea and surreptitiously scanning the full tables with a frown.

After a full minute she finally sighed and made her way across the room to the only vaguely familiar face in the crowd and paused at his table greeting the bowed head quietly, "Good morning Mocha Latte."

She waited as the head of lightly curly short brown hair raised and brown eyes met hers curiously, "Good morning?"

"So, this is entirely random, and feel free to say no, but, umm, can I sit down?"

Mocha Latte glanced around the room and seemed to process why she was asking immediately, before moving a few stacks of paper away from the free seat and gesturing for her to sit, "Go ahead. Packed in here for a Saturday huh?"

"Little bit," she agreed, sitting and leaning back in the chair with a relieved sigh.

"Long run this morning?"

"Not long enough," she replied to the man who for the last six months had been on line either in front of, or behind her, every weekday morning. "You're not usually here on Saturdays."

"Had some work to do and the air conditioning in my apartment is out," he responded.

"I'm not bothering you am I?"

"Not at all," he replied quickly, this time giving her a bright smile. "I'm Nate."

"Nice name. Much better then Mocha Latte," she replied with a smirk. "I'm Beth."

"In my head you've been Amanda."

Elizabeth raised an eyebrow and laughed when Nate blushed and began studying the papers in front of him after the sentence left his mouth. She let her eyes trail over him for a second before smirking and replying, "So, you think about me often huh?"

"No, no, nothing like that. It's just, umm, my job?"

"Really?" she asked, disbelief coloring her words. "To guess names?"

"Well, no but it's not just you; that guy in the suit who gets the danish and black coffee every day is Ted. I'm a psychologist. I study people."

"Practicing or research?" she responded immediately and then frowned. "Dunno why I asked that."

Nate chuckled, "It's fine. I guess I do both. I work for NCIS."

"You're a fed?"

Nate paused and studied her for a moment, "You know what that is?"

Beth nodded and took a sip of her tea, "Naval Criminal Investigative Services."

"That's right. Not too many people know that," he commented carefully and Beth realized he was studying her a lot harder, almost suspiciously.

"I work for State," she replied to his unanswered question and relaxed when he did. "So what kind of psychology to you use with NCIS?"

Nate shifted slightly uncomfortably in his chair and looked at her apologetically, "I can't really talk about it. You know a bit about the field?"

"Not really no," Beth admitted and kept her own confusion as deeply bottled as she could; since as far as she knew, she didn't know enough about it to have a conversation on the topic. "I must have seen one too many episodes of Doctor Phil."

Nate chuckled and commented, "Ah, yes, daytime television. Turning all of America into armchair psychologists."

"Exactly," Beth shot back with a laugh. "I didn't mean to pry either. I know enough about the word classified to keep my mouth shut when someone says they can't discuss something."

"What do you do at the State Department?"

Beth smirked and shook a finger at her table-mate before sighing and replying, "Unfortunately, I don't have near enough clearance to be able to shoot you down with a classified line. I'm a contract translator. Basically, my boss emails me a document and I translate it back into English. They don't ever send me anything remotely fun though."

"How long have you been working there?"

Beth frowned at the seemingly benign question and wondered how to answer it, because she was fairly certain 'I don't know exactly' wouldn't cut it in this instance. She saw the embarrassed look cross Nate's face and smiled to reassure him that he hadn't done anything wrong before taking a deep breath and answering as honestly as she could, "Eight years, but there was an accident a little less then six years ago and I've only been back on the job for a little over two."

"I'm sorry," Nate replied immediately looking for all the world like he was kicking himself for asking.

"It's fine," she whispered and glanced at her watch. "It's not your fault. I have to go though. I've got a deadline to meet."

"Of course," Nate replied standing up as she did. "Would you like to get a drink some time?"

Beth froze and stared back in surprise, "Really?"

"Yes, really."

"That'd be great," she said with a bright smile and grabbed his pencil off the table, writing her number onto a napkin and handing it to him. "That's me. Though, I suppose I'll see you on Monday."

"Probably," he smiled back and sat down, absorbing himself back into the papers he had been studying when she arrived.

The smile stayed on Beth's face the entire walk back to her apartment and didn't leave until she walked into her one-bedroom apartment and was greeted by a sharp voice, "Where the hell have you been?"

"Jogging, what are you? My father?"

"No, I'm your brother and I came over to visit and you weren't here."

"Jesus Tommy," Beth snapped back at the tall blonde haired man who was sitting on her living room couch. "I went out for a run and then I went to Starbucks. Alert the police. I'm not four."

"You might as well be," he muttered, following her into the kitchen. "I was worried Bethy. I'm sorry."

"Yea, fine," she whispered, staring out the kitchen window and refusing to meet his eyes. "I have work to do. You should go."

"Why don't we have lunch together? I haven't seen you in a few days."

"You mean you haven't interrogated me in a few days!" she shouted back. "Get out Tom. I have work to do." Any retort her brother could have made was interrupted by the sound of her cell phone ringing, "I have to get this."

"I'll wait," the older male replied.

"Hello?"

"Hey Beth, it's Nate. I was wondering if you wanted to get that drink tonight?"

"Tonight? I'd love to," she responded in delight, turning her back on her brother and grinning so he wouldn't see just how thrilled she was. "Where do you want to meet?"

"Do you know Akbar? On West Sunset?"

"I do."

"Good. I'm supposed to meet some people I work with tonight. I thought it could be a nice social thing. No pressure that way."

"Sounds great," Beth agreed. "What time?"

"Nine?"

"I'll see you there. Bye Nate."

"Bye."

"Who's Nate?" Thomas practically growled the second she hung up the phone.

"None of your business," she shot back. "Now as I was saying. I have work to do."

"Where are you meeting him?"

"Again, none of your business."

"Oh really? And what would Greg think?"

Beth paled at the mention of her long dead husband and immediately felt ashamed, but only for a moment before the anger took over, "I don't know! Because I don't remember him!"

"Fine, whatever. I'm just trying to take care of you."

"You don't need to. I'm not a child!"

"Oh really? Okay, cool. What'd you get for your tenth birthday."

Beth froze at the question and her shoulders dropped, "That's not fair Tommy."

"I know it's not fair Bethy. This whole situation isn't fair. I just don't want you to get hurt," he replied quietly. "You're all I have left. But you're right. You're an adult. Just call me when you get home tonight?"

"Alright," she finally agreed and waved as he walked out of the apartment, leaving her feeling like the biggest bitch on the planet.

Her brother Thomas had been waiting in the hospital when she woke up after a year and a half in a coma terrified because all she could remember was how to speak multiple languages. He had been by her side almost every single day for a year and a half after that as she went through multiple surgeries to graft skin onto the burns on her arm and back and the subsequent physical therapy. He had been the one that had put her back in touch with her boss, Tracey Watkins, to get her job back as a translator for the State Department in California. But now, two years after getting her own apartment in Los Angeles, she didn't understand why he still insisted on keeping tabs on every aspect of her life.

"Breathe Beth," she told herself. "You've got a, sort of, date tonight. But first you need to finish that briefing and send it to Tracey."

Three hours later found Beth emailing and faxing the English translation of a twenty page Russian oil company contract to her boss and then walking into her room to open a safe she had hidden underneath her bed a year earlier. The safe had been purchased when she realized her brother had developed a tendency to look through her things when she wasn't home.

Pulling out a file folder and a sketch book, she opened the folder and the skimmed the top document then smiled at the date on it, "Lease is up in two months. Time to move. Thank God."

She didn't understand it, and didn't want to tell her brother in case he dragged her back to a new neurologist, but after three months in her apartment she had been climbing the walls. Every new sound made her jump. At the one year mark she had to add a third deadbolt to the door rather then have a panic attack anytime someone knocked. Regardless, she still didn't feel safe.

Flipping through the folder she stopped on the marriage and death certificates. The marriage certificate told her she had been married to a Gregory Michael Banks ten years earlier in 2001 when she was twenty-six. Her brother told her they got married in a small ceremony right after she finished her masters at UCLA. The death certificate told her the date she had become comatose; Greg had never made it out of the house fire that had been caused by a blown gas pipe.

"Rule three," she whispered and then frowned, shaking her head and rolling her eyes before closing the folder and picking up the sketch book. Flipping open the pages she stared at the drawings that took up pages of the book.

The drawings began as a set of eyes and had gotten progressively more detailed as the last two years had progressed. They were all of the same person; she knew that, she just didn't know who it was. Her psychologist, someone she had apparently been seeing since before the accident, told her the drawings were her husband. He said it was normal, her subconscious was grieving for the lost love of her life. Beth had smiled, agreed and went along with the diagnosis.

"Except," she whispered to the drawing, running her fingers down the edge of the paper feeling soft skin instead. "Your name isn't Greg. So who are you?"


Hopefully we're all on the same page after this...

Thanks for reading. Please review and let me know what you think so far. Much love.