"Oh God no. No, no, no…", Sarah cried, as she paced the waiting room, almost frantically.

The team of doctors and nurses had been in Pepper's room for about twenty minutes now and they had not been told anything yet. The words spoken by the nurses earlier rang in Tony's ears and all he could think about was that Pepper's heart - that loving, caring, big heart of hers - might have stopped beating. The thought of her dying, all alone, surrounded only by people that she didn't know, haunted him.

Suddenly, the doctor that had spoken to them yesterday, came into the waiting room. He studied the rather large crowd of people, all eyes on him.

"Are you all family of Miss Pepper?", he asked, addressing the unfamiliar faces.

"Yes.",Pepper's mother and father answered together and he didn't question it.

"Miss Potts's heart stopped beating for a moment and she gave us quite a shock in there. However, her heart rate is up now, beating stronger than before."

They all exhaled, releasing the breath everybody had been holding.

"Will she be okay now?", Austin, Sarah's older son, asked carefully.

"I cannot tell you if she will. The risks are still high. But - and we don't know if this could be an indication that she is coming out of the coma - she moved her fingers just now. I don't want to give you any false hope, because it could just be a reflex. Sometimes it's simply an effect of the defibrillation, but it could also be a good sign."

Tony could hardly process the possibly good news. His mind was going in circles around the fact that Pepper's heart had indeed stopped beating. He envisioned her fragile body jolting off the bed, when the doctors had shocked her. He pictured her, like they showed it in movies, her small frame shaken by the impact of the defibrillator. The doctor's words finally brought him out of those scary thoughts.

"In case she is indeed trying to get past the comatose state, somebody should be in there with her right now. Somebody, whose voice might give her that little push that she needs to actually wake up."

"Darling, you have to go in there.", Janela told him and he nodded, already on his way to the room.

In her room, two nurses were re-adjusting Pepper's IVs and he waited in the doorway until they were done. As soon as they left, Tony walked up to her bed, taking a hold of her hand once again. Nothing about her seemed different and if he was being honest with himself, he had expected a change in her. The fact that she had just fought against death, had not left any obvious traces - the expression on her face and not changed.

"We ran more tests on her, Mister Stark.", Doctor Miller explained, standing at the end of the bed.

Tony looked up at him, silently praying he would get some good news. Anything. Just a glimmer of hope.

"Right now, it looks like there is no severe damage done to her brain. If we can keep her stable she should not suffer from any loss of brain function caused by her head injury. However, the test can't tell us how long it will take her to get past the coma and it is still a possibility that this might be a lasting condition."

"But she could get through it, right?", Tony asked weakly.

"Yes, she certainly can. There is something else though, I'm afraid."

"What?", he asked, closing his eyes and pinching the bridge of his nose.

"Many patients that suffer from the kind of injury Miss Potts is suffering from, experience post-traumatic amnesia. We can be almost completely sure that she will not remember anything about the actual accident or the events immediately before the crash. It's virtually impossible to figure out how the amnesia might be though."

"What does that mean? I mean… how much could she actually… you know… forget."

"The loss of memory could cover a few days or maybe weeks. In the worst case scenario, Miss Potts could lose the memories of years."

Tony's breath quickened as he grasped her hand a little tighter. If the doctor's speculations would come true, then Pepper might not remember their baby. She might not remember how she had agreed to marry Tony and start a family with him. There was a possibility that she wouldn't be able to recall so many little things that were important in her life.

"Will she still be… you know… my Pepper? I mean… will she be the same person?", Tony asked sadly.

"She will still be able to speak, walk and do everything else, if this is what you are getting at, Mister Stark. You need to understand though, if she will suffer from amnesia than she will most likely have the personality that she can remember. If anything about her has changed in that time span that she might possibly have no memory of, then Miss Potts will not know that. She will go back to being who she used to be."

"So… if she has lost the memory of the… lets say last three months… than she wont remember she was pregnant. Is that what you mean?", overwhelmed by the flood of information concerning Pepper's health.

"Exactly. I know this is a lot to take in, but I think you deserve to be told what you can expect if she wakes up."

"When she wakes up.", Tony corrected him. "Not if. She will. Pepper is going to wake up."

Doctor Miller didn't object because in a way,Tony's belief would maybe help Pepper. Sometimes it was the love and strength of others that made the essential difference, defying all medical rules and scientific explanations. Sometimes the people that stood by their sides, or waited in cold hospital rooms for days or weeks even, had the power to bring patients back from the incomprehensible depths of their unconsciousness.

"I'll leave you alone with her now.", the doctor said, and Tony nodded his head, deep in thought.

He kissed Pepper's forehead where it wasn't cut or bruised, lingering for a long moment.

"You gave us quite a scare, love.", he whispered. "You could make it up to us by opening your eyes, you know."

He stared at her face long and hard, hoping for the slightest hint of a change, when suddenly, he thought he'd seen her eyelids flutter. He blinked, squeezing her hand gently, waiting for her to do it again, but nothing happened.

"Come on, Pep. Come back to me.", he told her, wondering if he had just seen what he wanted to believe was happening.

Another nurse entered the room, checking the monitors that were surrounding Pepper's bed.

"I… I think she just tried to open her eyes.", Tony told her, his heart still racing.

"Continue speaking to her.", the nurse advised. "I will call her doctor."

"Pepper, darling. I'm here, we all are. Open your eyes,Pepper. Come on…", he begged.

Doctor Miller and the nurse entered the room again, immediately checking Pepper for any changes that would indicate her waking up. Tony caressed her hand with his thumb as he continued to whisper to Pepper.

"She moved her fingers!", he exclaimed suddenly.

As soon as he had said the words, Pepper's eyelids fluttered again, this time longer and more obvious.

"Get her parents in here! She needs to see familiar faces if she wakes up.", Doctor Miller instructed.

A moment later Harry and Janela entered the room, taking their place next to the bed. They all stared at her and for a while, nothing happened. Until, suddenly, her small fingers moved in Tony's hand again. He brought it up against his lips, kissing it gently.

"She's waking up!", Janela exclaimed, as Pepper's eyes fluttered yet again. "Wake up, honey."

Finally, Pepper's eyes opened and she blinked a few times, adjusting to the bright lights of the hospital room.

"Oh my God, Pepper.", Tony whispered, tears threatening to fall. "We're all here."

Her eyes darted from person to person frantically and she tried lifting her hand to the tube that had been supporting her breathing. The fear that played in her eyes, was frightening and Tony wanted nothing more than to take her in his arms and tell her everything would be okay.

"Calm down, Miss Potts. Do you know where you are?", Doctor Miller asked.

Pepper shook her head slightly, panic clouding over her vision.

"You are in the hospital, Miss Potts. You had an accident."

Her hand reached to her mouth again, but a nurse stopped her.

"You needed a little help breathing, but we will remove the tube now."

The doctor disconnected the tube from the breathing machine and instructed Pepper to cough on a count of three. He slowly removed it from her throat and she coughed, gagging on the rather large device. A nurse brought a cup of water to her mouth, telling Pepper to take a little sip to soothe her sore throat. After a moment, she calmed down, her breathing regulating.

"Why…", she whispered, her voice hoarse and strained.

"You were in a car crash, Pepper.", her mother told her, crying out of relief. "But you'll be okay now."

Pepper noticed how her hand was in Tony's, his thumb drawing patterns on her looked up at him, confused and he smiled at her. He, too, was crying silently and she was shocked to see him like that. Her eyes wandered until they finally fell on her dad.

"Daddy…", she smiled.

"Welcome back, princess.", her father laughed lightly, biting his bottom lip in an attempt to stop it from trembling.

Slowly, she looked back to Tony, confused. She carefully pulled her hand out of his, watching as the smile on his face slowly faded.

"What are you doing here?", she asked.

He looked at her, unsure why she would ask such a thing. Before he could answer. The doctor interrupted them.

"Miss Potts, do you remember what happened to you?", he asked.

Tears gathered in Pepper's eyes as she tried her hardest to remember the accident she had apparently been in. When she couldn't recall anything about it, fear shot through her body.

"I… I don't know.", she cried.

"That's quite alright. Don't worry. What is the last thing you remember?"

She closed her eyes, trying to focus on the many thought swirling in her mind. It was hard to make sense out of it all, with her head throbbing and aching.

"I remember that I was on my way home. And I remember shopping."

"You do?", Tony asked and she shot him a quick look, almost accusingly.

"I was on my way back from shopping my birthday present, which you forgot again.", she continued.

Tony closed his eyes, realizing that she must have lost her memory of the last few birthday had been 3 months ago. If this was how much she had forgotten, then she wouldn't know about their child, or their engagement.

"Can you recall any specific events that day?", Doctor Miller asked, trying to encourage Pepper to regain as much information as possible.

"I… I remember that I wanted you buy a very beautiful but expensive dress.", she answered.

"Miss Potts, tell us more about that. Did you buy the dress?"

Pepper studied them all for a moment, trying to figure out why they didn't know what she was talking mom and Sarah had gone shopping with her, so they should remember it as well, clearly.

"Yes I did.", Pepper whispered.

Tony's mind began racing as he tried to remember when Pepper had worn a new dress. Had it been at the firemen thing? "Do you remember anything else from that night?", the doctor asked, attempting to re-built Pepper's memory around the last event she seemed to be able to remember.

"Someone left me on the roof and never brought my drink back." She said and then looked over to Tony.

His eyes shot wide open and Janela gasped, gripping the edge of the bed. Pepper shot them all a worried look. She couldn't comprehend why they seemed to make such a huge deal out of last night's events.

"What date is today?", Doctor Miller spoke up.

"Uhm… it's the 20th… of August."

Pepper's parents and Tony shared a look with the doctor as realization slowly settled in.

"And what year, Miss Potts?"

Pepper's stomach twisted as the feeling that something wasn't quite right set in. They all looked so shocked and almost frightened, especially Tony. What he was doing there, with her parents, she could not comprehend at all. He was the last person she would expect by her bedside and it really confused and almost angered her to see him standing there.

"It's 2012.", Paula answered.

It was that one number and the way she had answered with such certainty, that made Tony realize that Pepper had lost her memories of the last couple of months.

She had lost her memory of them.