Chapter XXV

On the Panama border

Anna was pure deadweight in his arms. The pull of her weight threatened to tear them from their sockets.

Robert's arms had gone numb hours ago and now the only sensation he could still feel was that constant, thankless fight against gravity. Gravity that threatened to pull her weight down to the ground while his willpower kept her above it.

'It's a fight that I'm gonna win,' he mumbled to Anna without looking down. Looking at her meant losing focus of the vegetation beneath his feet. The last thing he needed was to trip and fall with Anna in his arms.

He had been walking for most of the last two hours. He knew because his Rolex dangled on Anna's wrist and every time he took a moment to catch his breath, he stole a glance at it.

Sweat drenched his clothing and Robert could feel it, running down his back and pooling in the nape of his neck.

'Just a little longer...' he thought, glancing over Anna and into the ground below, gingerly advancing over the rough terrain.

Robert knew that once he set her down, he wouldn't be able to pick her back up and continue. It would be a physical impossibility.

Where and when he stopped was where they would spend the night.

A night without shelter and without food or water.

While Anna was still unconscious.

The thoughts sent a shiver up his spine, cooling the sweat that dribbled down it. Without shelter or water it would take a small miracle to make it through the night. And then an even bigger miracle to bring them to Payita.

Payita was nothing more than a collection of huts in the middle of the jungle. A guerrila pit stop.

There would most likely be no doctor to tend to Anna.

The pressure of Anna's weight pulled at his arms again as if she'd somehow gained a couple of pounds in the last few minutes.

Was it possible that she was heavier now than five minutes ago? Or was it that his arms were increasingly useless, like rubber, incapable of supporting their own weight, let alone someone else's?

He stole another glance downward at Anna's, shocked this time by what he saw.

She was drawing her arm towards her face.

"Anna?"

Robert dropped to his knees and Anna nearly slipped out of his arms.

His arms shook with the strain of holding on to her and Robert clumsily set her down on the damp ground.

Taking one of her hands between the two of his, he rubbed her fingers vigorously feeling the numbness fade from his own fingers in the process, "Come on, sweetheart! Wake up!"

Once they were no longer completely numb, his moved his fingers to her cheek, rubbing them, a smile lighting up his face when he heard her groan.

Anna's eyes opened suddenly and she blinked several times before staring at him with a look of confusion.

"Robert..." she mumbled, slurring his name.

She was coming back to him.

He didn't think it was possible to feel such an enormous sense of relief.

It's going to okay.

I can handle whatever happens next if you're with me.

Tears had filled his eyes without his consent, clouding them while Anna slowly focused hers.

"Robert...?" she asked, confused.

"It's okay." He pulled her into his arms, knowing he'd never let go again.

Then he kissed her.

"It's gonna be okay, luv." He brushed a strand of hair from her face. "Everthing's going to be okay."

"What…what did you say?" her voice was low. She sounded like someone struggling to wake up, who wasn't quite sure yet what they were saying, or how exactly it sounded in their ears.

"You're back. It's gonna be okay."

Her hand weakly grasped at his shirt, scrunching it up in her fingers, "Not that…you called me 'luv'. It's what…"

"It's what I used to call you, I know…" he finished for her. "You and Robin."

Anna's fingers released their hold on him and she moved back in shock, pulling away from him.

"Hey…take it easy," Robert chided her.

"How do you know…?"

"I remembered."

" 'You remembered?' " Anna's eyes widened. "You had another memory?"

"No…" Robert shook his head, torn between elation and concern. He wanted to tell her about every single thing he remembered. Even his exhaustion took a sudden back seat to the fact that he couldn't wait to share it all with the one person who made up the bulk of his memories. But at the same time he had to know whether she was alright. "Not one memory," he tried to explain. "Everything."

Anna stared at him in disbelief. "Everything?"

"Anna, do you remember falling down the hill?"

"Yeah…" A subtle smile raised her lips as she nodded, her eyes focused and aware now. "I'm not the one with amnesia."

"I crashed down the hill after you," he told her, noticing with relief that her voice was clearer now. "After I landed I think I was out of it for a bit."

She didn't say anything, waiting for him to go on.

"And when I woke up…"

Robert paused, debating whether to tell her the entire truth. That it wasn't the fall that brought back the flood of memories. That the trigger was something more disturbing. Something he wouldn't mind wiping from his memory.

Seeing you lying on the ground completely still and realising that I might have…

"Then what happened?" she prompted, bringing him back. Disoriented as she was, Robert could swear that Anna sensed that he was leaving something out.

"I came to…and when I did, I remembered." God, where did he start? "I remembered our wedding. The one you told me about, after the beach…"

Anna bit her lip, "You did?"

"That was just the beginning. Afterwards, it felt like I was drowning. Drowning in images and thoughts…drowning in decades of memories. It was so…incredible." There was no other way to explain it.

One of Anna's hands squeezed his, and the back of her other one wiped a tear from her face. "It must have overwhelmed you."

Robert chuckled, "I remembered so much, Anna…I thought that maybe it would be too much…that my mind couldn't handle it all and that I'd go crazy in the process…I remembered so many people. Holly, Luke, Filomena, Katherine…I didn't just remember them, I knew who they were. Even more than that, I knew what they meant to me…" He paused, grateful that she was squeezing his hand. Grateful that the pressure of flesh against flesh meant he wasn't dreaming.

"I remembered our daughter, Anna, " he told her. "Why, Anna…? Why didn't you tell me the truth?" He could envision Robin again, not when she was a little girl this time, standing in his living room, but a teenager, saying goodbye to him before he left to search for her mother. "And how, in god's name, is it possible that I couldn't remember her all these years? Our beautiful daughter…what kind of a father doesn't remember his own child?"

The guilt and regret hit him again and the sheer force of it left him breathless.

Was it always going to be like this? Were the memories always going to be so…strong?

He felt Anna's arms around him and for the first time since meeting her in Medellin, was he aware of the love behind the gesture. Anna loved him. She loved him as much now as she did that day they made love on the beach.

How could I not have noticed it before?

"It's not your fault, Robert…don't blame yourself for something you had no control over."

'What now…?' he wanted to ask. It was all such a mess. Such a crazy, inconceivable mess.

He held on to Anna and he saw her freeing one of her arms in to press a hand against her temple, shutting her eyes in obvious discomfort

The gesture jolted him back to the present.

What the hell was he thinking? Wasting precious time on guilt and regret, when their current situation was more pressing than anything his newfound memories might be tormenting him with.

Anna was hurt. It was getting dark. They had absolutely no supplies. He couldn't even offer Anna a sip of water.

Both of them were utterly exhausted.

"Jesus Christ, Anna…what am I thinking?" he moved his hand to cover hers, gently moving it away from her eyes so he could read them. "I haven't even asked you how you are."

"I'll be okay…" she answered. "You have no idea how much it means to have you look at me like…you know me."

"Anna…tell me the truth."

"The truth?" Anna gave him a lopsided smile. "I feel awful. Everything hurts. Waking up seemed impossibly hard…just like it was this morning."

Robert kissed her forehead, "You were out of it for awhile. You scared the hell out of me."

"How long have we been here, at the foot of the hill?"

"We're not at the foot of the hill anymore…"

She looked at him, puzzled. "Robert, I don't understand."

"You wouldn't wake up. I couldn't just let you lie there unconscious and not do anything."

Anna still didn't understand, "But what could you have done?"

"I started walking."

"Walking?" Anna turned around, scanning the area around them, as if taking in her surroundings for the first time since coming to. "You couldn't have carried me…that's not possible, not in this terrain." Her gaze, followed by her hand, went towards his shoulder. "Robert, that's crazy. Your shoulder…oh god, Robert…"

He hadn't noticed it until she pointed it out. That his entire upper sleeve was covered in dried blood. "I'm sure it's worse than it looks 'cause I can't feel a thing. But there is something else that scares me. In order to carry you I had to leave the packs behind and it's getting dark..."

Her face paled at the realization of what that meant. "How…how far are we from Payita?"

"I think we're close. If we make it there before nightfall we stand a chance."

She eyed him as if already knowing what he would ask her next.

"Can you walk?"

"I don't know…"

"Come on, luv." He held his hands out to her, helping her up.

She stood unsteadily at first, standing upright only because he supported most of her weight, but he didn't give her the chance to consider the other option.

He started walking, slowly and cautiously, with one of her arms draped over his shoulder, praying that eventually her legs, not his, would support the bulk of her weight.

A couple of dozen steps later, they did.

He wanted to tell her how much he admired her just then. But neither of them had the energy for words.

They had to keep moving forward.

Towards Payita.

Yaviza, Panama

"What do you mean they chartered a helicopter?" Luis Rigato asked the dark-skinned man at the fuelling station of Yaviza's airstrip.

"It's the easiest way to get around in these parts," the man explained. "A lot of jungle villages don't have airstrips, or they have airstrips that flood during the rainy season. So Pablito, he has this helicopter that anyone can charter…but only in Panama. He doesn't do runs into Colombia. He's one hundred percent legit."

"Look, I don't give a…I'm not a damn coke smuggler" Rigato restrained himself. The man knew he was a cop. Not that he'd made any efforts to hide that fact. But half the cops in Colombia had their fingers in the drug trade, he couldn't really blame the man for assuming he'd be part of that half. "Do you know where they went?"

A slow smile spread over the man's face. "Sorry. He doesn't share his travel plans with me. I just put the fuel in the bird."

Rigato gritted his teeth and pulled out a US fifty dollar bill. Easily a week's salary in this part of the world. "Maybe you accidentally overheard something? Yes?"

"I'm sorry…" The man's smile widened, "My hearing's not so good anymore. I'm sorry officer but I can't help you."

Rigato could've arrested him then and there. For obstruction of justice. To hell with jurisdictions and legalities. But he didn't need this kind of hassle when he was this close to the goal. Instead, he pulled out another fifty. "How about your memory? How good is that?"

The two bills were snatched from his hand with a speed that shocked Luis Rigato.

"I think I remember hearing something about a town called Payita."

This time it was Rigato who smiled, "Now how about getting in touch with that chopper and seeing if he can do a return trip?"

Payita, Panama

Robin Scorpio yawned and checked the time on her watch. The illuminated numbers were the only source of light in the room she was lying in.

If you could call it that. A room, that is.

Normally rooms had four walls. This one only had three.

The fourth side was fully exposed to the open night air and when Robin pushed her elbow into the ground she'd been lying on, to prop herself up, she caught the remnants of a fire burning in the distance. There was also the shadowy outline of a hen walking past it.

She stole another glance at her illuminated watch face, only now taking in the time.

4:57am.

She yawned again.

She couldn't see Mac or Valencia. It was too dark for that. But she could hear her uncle's soft snores several feet away from her. Valencia was quiet and Robin wondered whether she too was wide-awake, or whether she'd been able to catch a few hours of much needed sleep.

Valencia was the one who had negotiated this room for them. It was part of a two-room house, whose inhabitants were asleep in the room next to them. A family of eight. Two boys normally slept where they now were, on the ground of the semi-open kitchen next to the stove.

But tonight they had retreated to the other room.

In exchange for the two t-shirts and three packs of gum Valencia had offered them.

'I should take you with me next time I try to book a friend one of those ridiculously overpriced hotels in Paris...' Robin thought with a smirk.

She had no idea what they would have done without Valencia's help. The woman had a career and a young son back in Medellin, and here she was, sleeping on the mud floor of an open kitchen with her and Mac. Hoping that somehow they'd run into her parents.

Their whole plan was based on countless fragile assumptions. Now that Robin had given it some rational thought at the crack of dawn, she wanted to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it all.

They had no way of knowing for sure whether this was the route her parents had taken.

Whether they had already passed through Payita.

Or if they hadn't, that they'd be here long enough to catch them.

They didn't have even know the most basic facts.

Like whether or not her parents were still alive.

"Stop it..." Robin scolded herself aloud, suddenly shivering in the warm night air.

5:02am.

Her watchface was bright in the darkness, countering her morbid thoughts with persistent Swiss reliability.

Robin sat up against the mud wall of the kitchen. She gave up on the notion of sleep. Instead, she'd wait until the first rays of sun appeared and then, in spite of Mac's repeated instructions to not leave his sight, she would get up and go for an early morning walk.

Payita, Panama

Robert Scorpio wasn't entirely sure how they had made it to Payita last night.

He knew they had walked several hours before reaching the village, not because his Rolex told them, but because when they did arrive the night sky was already pitch-black. If it hadn't been for a nearly full moon and cooking fires burning in the distance: they might have missed Payita altogether.

Robert shuddered to think what that might have meant for them.

'Death,' he realized. 'We wouldn't have survived another 24 hours out there. Not in our state and not without supplies.'

Instead they had walked into the first dwelling they spotted; a large round house near the edge of the jungle, away from the cluster of houses that made up the bulk of the village.

Hurt, exhausted, dehydrated and bordering on delirious, they must have been a frightening sight for the family of at least half a dozen that lived in the house.

Robert had told them they were refugees from Colombia, fleeing the guerrilla violence in the hills, like hundreds of other Colombians before them. He told them that two of them had nearly been captured by rebel guerrillas and escaped with only the clothes on their backs. It was a plausible story, and given the family's reaction, Robert deducted they weren't the first Colombians to stream out of the jungle and into their home.

He told them Anna was his wife. That she couldn't speak Spanish because she was American. He was too tired to think whether that made any sense given his refugee story.

A frail old woman fussed over them as three little children watched her wide-eyed. She made a face when she saw his shoulder wound and Anna's cuts and bruises. She was about to cover them all in a thick gooey paste had Robert not protested. He also remembered that old woman gave them a warm clear broth to drink and blankets to cover them, but the rest of his recollection was blurry.

He only vaguely remembered lying down. Vaguely remembered Anna falling asleep next to him. Vaguely remembered his futile attempt to stay awake because he was afraid she might not wake up again. Afraid too, that sleep would rob him of all the memories he'd gained.

But not only could he not evade sleep, it had come with astonishing speed. Robert was certain it had hit him before he closed his eyes.

Now a sliver of sunlight pressed through the hut they were in, its tip landing on his cheek, warming it.

Robert opened his eyes, taking a moment to remember where he was.

Payita. Panama. Inside a dirt-poor family's home. A family who had done what virtually no family in a Western city would have done given their appearance last night. They had taken them in and offered them food and shelter. Without question.

Robert turned around to see Anna still asleep next to him. He was tempted to try and wake her, only because he wanted to see her awake, knowing it would give him the sense of relief he craved. But, looking at her fast asleep, one of her arms lazily draped over his thigh, he didn't have the heart. It was early morning and they'd only slept a few hours. They both desperately needed the rest.

He probably should have tried to go back to sleep too, but he knew if would be an exercise in futility. His shoulder throbbed and his back ached. He wasn't sure whether it was from sleeping on the bare, earthen floor, from carrying Anna yesterday or from the earlier tumble he took down the hillside.

'Probably a combination of all three…' he thought, cringing at the soreness as he stood up, placing Anna's arm on the ground with one hand while massaging his lower back with the other. As if that wasn't enough to keep him awake, the goats, chickens and pigs that roamed around outside were making enough noise to wake the entire town. It was a small marvel that Anna was still asleep.

For about five seconds he longed for his quiet, gated bungalow outside of Medellin, but a second glance at Anna pushed the image from his mind.

It wasn't just the noise and the pain that kept him from sleep.

The sense of elation that electrified him had something to do with it as well.

They did it.

He had made it across the border. He'd regained his memory.

As exhausted, as he had been last night, a part of him had feared that he would go to sleep and wake up to find the memories gone. Yet it was the opposite. For the first time in years, Robert woke up knowing exactly who he was.

He was Robert Scorpio. Cop. Husband. Brother. Father.

The knowledge weakened and strengthened him all at once. It made him vulnerable, because his decisions were no longer based on not what could guarantee his immediate survival, but theirs.

"My family…" he mumbled the words aloud, wanting to laugh. They sounded so surreal coming from his lips.

The responsibility of having a family was more daunting than that of having an entire police force depend on the wisdom of his choices.

His eyes drifted back to Anna, still asleep.

Loving someone made you careful. Robert was beginning to remember that too now.

All these emotions were both foreign and familiar to him. They toyed with him, coming at him when least expected, as if to see how he'd tolerate them all.

Putting someone else's welfare before his had weakened his survival instincts. Throwing away his pack to carry Anna was ample proof of that, but at the same time it was powerful motivator.

He had to stay alive. Not for himself. But for Anna. And Robin.

Robert stretched his aching muscles. It was quiet in the dwelling. Still too early in the morning for anyone to get up, even for rural farmers that were used to rising with the first rays of the sun.

Aside from the noisy chatter of animals, there was no sound of human activity coming from the village.

It would be a good time to take a walk around it and get his bearings.

It would be best if they found a way to leave the village before the day ended. It was much too close to the border for Robert's liking. But Robert knew that was an unreasonable expectation. Neither of them had the strength nor the energy to keep going. They had to rest at least for a day.

He debated once more, whether or not to wake Anna before stepping outside. Wondering if waking up and not finding him here would frighten her.

'Don't flatter yourself,' he thought with a grin. 'It'll take more than that to scare you, right luv?'

Robert rubbed his beard with his hand as he stumbled out of the house and onto a dirt road that lead to a cluster of other homes. The village centre, he suspected.

He must have looked as awful as he felt. Dirty and ragged.

'Like someone who just spent days walking through the jungle…'

He needed a bath and a shave almost as much as he needed a full night's sleep. Maybe there would be some way to squeeze in both during the course of the day.

Walking into the village he saw it slowly stir to life.

The sun's rays broke through the eastern horizon with a brightness that surprised Robert. It would be daylight in minutes, he suspected.

Robert took in everything around him, trying to get a sense of where he was.

A soft morning mist rose from the trees that surrounded the village, reminding him that they were still in the jungle. There was no noticeable reason as to why people would have settled here. No bend in the river or any body of water for that matter. It was nothing more than a clearing in the endless jungle, filled with a scattering of huts and homes, where its inhabitants had once, and some of them still, eked out a subsistence living by farming and hunting.

It was humid already and once the sun's glare was out in full force, it would be unbearably hot. The jungle clearing would offer none of the protective shade that the constant canopy of trees had given him the past two days.

Robert spotted a house that looked it could be a store or a supply depot. Guerrillas from both sides of the border would come here for one last taste of normal civilization before disappearing into the jungle hills around them, often for weeks or months at a time.

Robert wondered if the village had a doctor or at least a nurse, although, in his experience most guerrilla camps came equipped with their own medical staff. He made a mental note to ask the family in whose home they'd slept last night.

Out of the corner of his eye he spotted an old man throwing food into a throng of greedy chickens, oblivious to his presence. Further in the distance, he saw two scrawny stray dogs fighting over what looked like a piece of meat. He was too distracted by the tussling animals to notice a young woman emerge from the cluster of houses in the centre of the village.

It was only when she was a few feet away from him, that she caught his full attention.

The young woman looked as lost as he was. Ambling aimlessly around the village, her Western clothes making her stick out like a sore thumb.

Robert focused his gaze on her, noticing that as soon as he did, she stopped dead in her tracks.

She was staring at him.

Her eyes, Anna's eyes, widened and she moved a trembling hand to her mouth in shock.

"Dad?"