Lena was standing outside the hotel room of Winn's mother as she tried to come up with what to say. This wasn't going to be an easy conversation even if Winn was here and now she had to talk to a total stranger in a last ditch effort to find him.

She had been standing outside the door for almost 4 minutes before she finally knocked on the door. A middle aged woman with long dark black hair wearing a blue blouse and jeans opened the door.

"Are you Rachel Schott?" Lena asked. The woman didn't respond for a moment before saying, "Whatever you're selling i'm not interested." She then tried to close the door.

"Wait." Lena said, putting her hand in the doorway to stop it from closing. The door hit the back of her hand and she winced in pain. "I'm not here to sell anything. I know your son Winn."

The woman looked at her in silence before opening the door and gestured for her to come in.

"Sorry about that." Rachel said as Lena entered. "This isn't a great place so you have to be careful."

"It's fine." Lena replied. She looked around the room. It smelled of old cigarettes, burnt food and other foul smelling things. The wallpaper was faded and dirty, and stains lined the carpet.

"Can I get you some ice for that?" Rachel said, pointing at Lena's hand which was starting to bruise. "Yeah that would be great." Lena replied.

She sat down in a chair in the corner of the room. Rachel returned a minute later carrying a bucket of ice. She handed it to Lena and sat down on the bed.

"Again i'm so sorry about that." She said giving an apologetic smile. "So who are you and how exactly do you know my son?"

"My name is Lena. I've been dating Winn for about six months now."

"Oh that's so wonderful to hear!" Rachel said with a smile. "Its nice to see my son has found such a nice girl."

"Thank you." Lena replied. Under normal circumstances she may have felt flustered by the compliment but right now she had to ask some questions.

"I'm going to get straight to the point. Have you seen or heard from Winn since you called him?"

Rachel's face fell. "You heard that?" Lena nodded her head. "No I haven't." She said with a mixture of guilt and sadness in her voice. Does he know you're here?"

Lena shook her head no before looking down disappointed. This had been her only lead and it hadn't amounted to anything. She felt silent tears running down her face.

"Dear what's wrong?" Rachel said with concern in her voice.

Lena wiped the tears from her face before saying, "I haven't been able to find Winn in a few days and I don't know, I thought maybe you knew where he was."

"I'm sure he's fine." Rachel said reassuringly. "If he's anything like how I remember he will come back. He was never the type of person to just leave."

An uncomfortable silence overtook the room after that before being broken by Lena asking, "Why did you leave him?"

Rachel took a deep breath before saying, "I was being selfish. I convinced myself that leaving would somehow make it better for him. So one day I just packed a bag and left."

"I still remember the day he was arrested. We had been struggling with finances and Winn's father had become obsessed with getting his designs back and when that didn't happen he just exploded. The cops came for him a few hours after the explosion. Winn was so broken hearted, he admired his father so much and seeing him arrested just broke him. I wasn't much better. He may have been a murderer but I still loved him."

She put her head down, avoiding eye contact.

"I left a few weeks later I couldn't take it anymore. I couldn't go anywhere in town and all of our friends abandoned us. So I left. It was the worst thing I have ever done. Whatever I was going through Winn had it worse. A week after I left I came to my senses and tried to get him back but I couldn't. They said I couldn't be trusted to stay. I tried everything but they wouldn't let me see him."

"Why only contact him now? Why not sooner?" Lena asked.

Rachel looked close to tears now. "I wanted to so badly but the only thing I could think of was how he would hate me. I had abandoned him at fourteen when he needed me the most. I hate myself for what I did to him."

She then looked up at Lena with tears in her eyes.

"When you see him again please tell him I love him no matter what he thinks of me, and if he's willing to, I would love to meet him."

Lena was about to respond when Kara called.

"Lena, we've found him!" Kara exclaimed.

Sorry for the long delay everyone.

Hope you enjoyed and please review.