It wasn't that Aunt Kathryn had hit her very hard, although the slap had not been light. The wallop that laid her out was the emotional whammy that accompanied the physical contact. All of the hatred, the anger, the rage, the fear, the betrayal, the hurt, every single feeling that Mark's aunt had been nursing as she sat in the dark and worried about her nephew, all of it hit her at once. After the day she had endured her defenses were weak, and her coping strategies were nonexistent. Instead of being able to let then slide over her, each emotion mingled with hers, and it was just too much. For her own protection her mind shut itself off until the emotions subsided to a manageable level.

While Anne lay senseless on the floor, Mark tried to explain a few things that he had omitted. "It's not her fault," he started.

"Not her fault? How is it not her fault? She killed him!" she hissed.

"It was self-defense," he said quietly.

His aunt looked at him questioningly. "How can it be self defense when she was kidnapping a child?"

"She was rescuing her."

"But you said that…"

"I lied. Things are a bit more complicated than he or I ever let you know. Anne, she was doing the right thing when she took the child."

"How is kidnapping ever right?"

Mark sighed. "It's a very long story, and it's not one I feel like telling right now."

"Why not, Mark?" croaked Anne as she sat up. "Haven't you had enough of all the lies? I know I have."

He looked at her incredulously. "You want her to know?"

"To know what?" questioned Kathryn.

"To know that I'm a plant, and so is the girl I rescued."

"You're a what?"

Anne sighed. "The beings in the bulbs are humans, altered by Lost Technology to fit in an alien environment and to be able to produce power." She used the wall as a support while she stood. "And every now and then one of those beings has a child. Mark, and his friends at the plant had been taking those kids out of the bulbs and experimenting on them until they got too old, and then they killed them. Somehow, and honestly I don't know how, but somehow one of the kids was taken from the plant. I rescued her from those kidnappers, and then when Mark and your son and two other men came to try to take her away from me, I didn't let them. During the altercation I shot your son, and since someone had tampered with my ammunition before the fight, the bullet did not go in his shoulder, as I planned, but in his heart. You have no idea how sorry I am that such a thing happened, but it did and I can't make it better." Her voice broke on the last.

"A… Plant?" asked Kathryn weakly.

Anne nodded. "It's a great big secret, that not all plants are in bulbs. Mark is part of a group dedicated to figuring out how to make sure that there are no plants like me, living outside a bulb. They think I'm too dangerous to be allowed to exist."

"This is… a lie."

"No," said Mark quietly. "It's not a lie."

"My son would not torture an innocent child." She shook her head back and forth slowly, as if she could shake the notion away.

"He didn't. We were just the muscle sent to bring her back. Scientists did the research."

"Why didn't you tell me this was what you were doing?"

"Because it's a secret. The December group is devoted to killing the plants that live outside bulbs. They are dangerous creatures." Anne sighed, but he ignored her. "We are trying to take care of the problem secretly. It is the opinion of the senior members of the group that if we leaked the knowledge of the existence of the plants to the public, we would destabilize the current social order. Plants look like normal humans; you can't tell by just looking at your neighbor if he is or isn't one. Plus, some people would favor them, wouldn't see them as the danger they are and would disagree with the need to kill them."

"Yup. Some people might judge me as a person and not a creature," Anne affirmed weakly.

"This is… insane," she said weakly as she turned and walked back to her chair. "I mean, this is just insane. I can't believe either of you. You must have been drinking. This is a fantasy that you cooked up, that you believe between the two of you."

"It's not a lie, Kathryn," Anne said softly. "Look at me."

She turned, and Anne floated a ball of light her way, the soft silver light illuminating the wry smile on her face. "I can do all sorts of tricks that you can't. I can read minds, sense emotions, and damn near make miracles. Mark's friends, my bosses, really since they all seem to work at the plant, they fear me because I can do all sorts of things they can't stop."

Kathryn sat down weakly, almost missing her chair. "You… I…"

"Say it, I don't mind. I'm a freak. I know," Anne finished up sadly.

"No," she whispered. "No," she said more firmly. "That wasn't what I was going to say. Why didn't you, either of you, say anything about this before? Why didn't you say any of this over the weekend Mark? Why did you both lie to me?"

"I'm sorry," said Anne softly, Mark echoing her a moment behind. Anne walked into the living room and sat across from her, hands on knees, fingers loosely intertwined. "I just am tired of people hating me," she said, staring into her hands. "Every time people know what I am, they hate me."

"And I was too busy hating her," Mark said from his post in the doorway. "She's not what I was expecting a plant to be, and I was having a hard time looking past what I've been told I need to fear and seeing that it was only Anne on the other side after all."