Author's Note: I'm finally back! Oh this one makes me cry! Get out those tissues! We're one away from the end, so though you may cry, remember my promise, this one will end much happier.

            "Professor Challenger!" Isabella cried, ducking past a whirling machine and avoiding knocking over a batch of chemicals bubbling over. "Professor, I've brought in the lost sheep."

            "Isabella, what are you talking about? I'm much too busy for games now. I'm so close," George Challenger returned, his mind too engrossed in an experiment to look up at his new visitors. When he finally did look up, he brightened visibly and fumbled to shut off his Bunsen burner. "Oh, my dear Marguerite! It is so wonderful to see you."  He made his way through the cluttered laboratory to them and enfolded Marguerite in a large hug.

            "I'm here for good, George," Marguerite assured him.

            "Professor, we're here for the letters," Isabella said conspiratorially.

            "Oh! Yes, of course." He released Marguerite and began to shuffle through his drawers. "Where did I put them? I know they're here somewhere. Oh damn this old age. Aha! Here we go. Wonderful."

            Challenger presented Bella with two bundles of tattered letters. "There you are, dear."

            "Thank you very much. We'll take them outside."

            "Oh, any time Isabella," George grinned. "Mr. Malone, I could use some help with my experiment."

            Inwardly, Layton groaned but he politely agreed, knowing Isabella needed some alone time with her mother.

~*~*~

            Isabella and Marguerite wandered into Professor Challenger's vegetable and exotic plant garden. They found a small wooden bench that Jack and Layton had made with their fathers for Challenger's birthday years ago and sat down.

            "These are letters. Letters I wrote once a year on the anniversary of Jackie's funeral. One stack is addressed to you, the other to Jack. I want you to read them all, just to somewhat understand who I am now."

            Marguerite glanced from the letters in her lap to her very grow-up daughter.

            "Isabella, this is such a part of you. I mean, the ones to Jack…… I wouldn't want to stick my nose where it doesn't belong."

            Isabella half-laughed. "You're my mother; your job is to stick that nose into all of my business. Besides, when you're done with Jack's, I want you to come with me to his grave. That's your penance."

            There was a touch of amusement tickling her voice though her face remained rather serious.

            "If you insist," Marguerite sighed, unwrapping the first bunch.

~**********************************************~

Age 9

Dear Mum,

            You're not here and I don't know why, but I'm sure you'll come back. Today was Jack's funeral. Dads cried with me for a long time. The sun does seem to shine as brightly any more.

Love,

Bella

Age 10

Mummy,

            I wish you would come home. Gabrielle scares me sometimes because she gets so angry. Her baby will be born soon, but I don't think it's Dads's. I miss you.

Love,

Isabella

Age 11

Mum,

            Why aren't you here? Everything would be better then. Dads has started to treat me like it's all my fault and Gabrielle….. Mum, she hurt me last night. I love you, Mum, please come home.

Hopefully yours,

Isabella

Age 12

Dearest Mother,

            It has been almost three years now and my thirteenth birthday is fast approaching. I can barely remember who I was before Jackie left us: a carefree kid without any bruises. I am so different now. To Father I have dropped off of the ends of the world. To Nathaniel I am the world. And to Gabrielle I am the world's best punching bag. I no longer care why you left, I just want you home.

Love,

Isabella

Age 13

Mother-

            Four years, Mother. Four years. Where are you? I have spent a year looking for you and now, on the ever of the big one-four. I have almost given up hope. The rest of my world has. I hold your title, Mother; I am the Lady Roxton. I love you and want you home, but the betrayal has become more evident as I get up in my years.

Yours,

Isabella

Age 14

Mother,

            I guess this'll be the last letter for a while. I don't think I'll have time to waste writing to you as I wander. If I find you in my travels, wonderful, but I've stopped looking. Doing the impossible is no longer one of my talents. Gabrielle must have beaten it out of me. I fear her. I fear for my life. This is what you've left me to. I couldn't live with myself if I were you. But you know nothing of this so I guess that makes it easier to be guilt-free. The Professor told me about your days as the Black Widow of Vienna in the Great War. I guess I should just be happy Father has yet to meet an unfortunate end, unless you include marrying Gabrielle as one. I hope that if you read these some day I'm not dead and you don't think I hate you. I don't. Well, not exactly. I'm just……. confused. Why did you leave?

Lady Isabella Elizabeth Roxton

~********************************************************~

            Marguerite looked up at Isabella but could barely see her through the tears.

            "Why don't you hate me?"

            "Because you are my mother. I thought I hated you. Honestly, for the past few months I really thought I hated you. Obviously I've always loved you, it's a natural law, but up until recently…"

            "What happened recently?"

            "Oh, this will sound crazy and no one believes me, but here it goes. I went back in time. To before you and Dads were married. And I saw you, when you were still a bit cold and closed off to people, and I got to see you from a different perspective, met you as a woman and not my mother. I don't know, Mum, I just… It is honestly very hard to explain. Hell, fifteen minutes ago when you showed up my room I was ranting to Layton about how much I hated you. And then it clicked. I haven't forgiven you yet, but then again it took me a week to forgive Layton for eating my cookie, so it could be a while," she managed to crack an adorable Roxton smile. "And I want you to take your damn title back."

            The real Lady Roxton laughed through her tears. It was a talent Isabella had acquired years ago, making people laugh when they were crying. Especially her mother. Isabella strongly believed she was one of the only people who had ever seen her mother cry.

            "There you go, Mum. You're much prettier when you smile. You know, they say I look like you." Isabella let the implications of her statement hang in the air for a while and then they both chuckled lightly.

            "Keep reading," she then gently commanded, motioning to the next stack.

Marguerite reverently picked them up and began to read. Like the other bunch, the first started with the large, messy print of a child and ended with the beautiful script of a young Lady. The last one made her lose any semblance of composure with it's brutal honesty and emotion written in such an exquisite way.

~********************************~

Dear Jack,

            Father marries tomorrow. It is as if he is saying there is no more hope of Mother returning. Perhaps he is right. But I fear that when Gabrielle is married to him and has my title, she will no longer see a need for me. Indeed, precious little brother, I fear for my life. This may be my last letter for a whole. I may not return to New London. I may stay with Cobi, but I may be found there. Still, I know he will take care of me. I am sick of hurting. I am sick of life. Sometimes I wish I could join you at His side. I'm sure Heaven is a lovely place. Don't worry, darling, I know that would be a mortal sin in His eyes, but sometimes I have to wonder… I will wait until my time to see you again. I love you my dearest baby brother.

For the last time,

Every ounce of my love,

Lady Isabella Elizabeth Roxton

~***********************~

            "How do you still believe in God?" was all the mother could manage.

            "I have always had my faith, Mum. It's all I've had sometimes. Some people lose it in times of strife, but if I had lost mine, I would have had nothing."

            "You actually considered suicide?"

            Through her crying, she felt like she needed to vomit. Her daughter, her darling flesh and blood, the amazing mix of herself and John, contemplated ending her life, partly because of her.

            "My faith was all that saved me."

            The silence remained.

            "I want to go to Jackie's grave and burn his letters. I need to. I need you to go with me."

            "Oh, Bella, I don't know if I can."

            "Have you ever been?"

            "I was at his funeral, Isabella."

            The daughter stopped mid-rise from the bench. "What?"

            "I watched. From a distance. It was the last I saw of you and your father. Until the Zanga village. I saw the pain you were all in, felt the pain I was in, and I had to get away from it all. I don't think I ever meant to be gone for five years, but once I was gone, I couldn't gather the courage to come back."

            Isabella threw her arms around her mother and hugged her more tightly than she ever had. "I love you, Mum. I need you, Mum"

            They made their pilgrimage to John Richard Roxton, Jr.'s gravesite.