Prolog

Mia sat next to her daughter who was currently playing in a small pen made for children her age. Little Rose nibbled at the ear of the small monkey toy her father gifted her right after she was born. Some cute noises escaped the girl who was oblivious to her mothers inner torment.
She missed Ethan and everything felt so alien to her.
They had been relocated again – back into the states - after the mess in Romania.

The small house was different to the old one but it was the interior that brought back all of the memories.
Mia couldn't throw anything away so she kept most of the things even if they had advised her to let go and move forward.

A few weeks. It had only been a few damn weeks after that incident and definitely not enough time to mourn his death.
How could she move on when Chris and the others were still so tight-lipped about everything that had happened in the village?
She had a right to know why her husband was gone. She had been so sure about him coming back to his family alive.
He was special – that was what she told Chris and what made him go back to look for Ethan.
He should have survived.
Of course she was relieved to have Rose back healthy and vital but nothing had been normal ever since.

Her husbands missing presence was clearly showing and her baby girl was crying a lot - as if she remembers him sitting next to her, feeding her and carrying her. They spend six month together.

It was hard for them both.
Mia tried to look as normal as she could whilst being around her daughter but there was just so much she could do.

The psychiatrist always talked about the process of loss.

There were five staged of grief.

The first: Denial. It had happened so fast in the helicopter after her rescue. Chris told her about Ethan. How he stayed back to ensure their escape. Then – the explosion. The first stage only lasted for a few seconds.

The second: Anger. She had screamed at Chris, wanting to know where Ethan was and what the soldier had done. He stopped her with his fist punching against the metal frame of the helicopters cockpit. There was pain in his voice and she looked down into her daughters unknowing face with tears in her eyes. In the coming weeks after that she blamed him for what happened and she knew he did so himself too. She knew it wasn't fair to him after all what he had done for their family but it made herself feel a little bit better to blame someone – even if it lasts only for a short while.
She left this stage but tends to come back to it sometimes.

The third: Bargaining. Oh she did that nearly everyday. Ethan loved his daughter so much and he had risked everything to save her whilst Mia was captured and useless in Mirandas claws. It would only be fair if she had died in his stead.

The fourth: Depression. Anger was still very prominent and her depressed state often left her in some kind of trance. She fed Rose, cuddled with her but felt detached somehow. At night she would cry in the bathroom, thinking about how she probably would never reach the fifth and last stage of grief. Acceptance sounded so … unreachable. And letting go felt … wrong.

Nightmares were still a big problem.
For her and for Rose.
How often did she wake up to her little girls wailing, asking herself what they did to her?
But no one would give her answers. They would just advise her again to be happy.
Her own dreams were not only centering about her imprisonment or Ethans death … no, it was Louisiana all over again too.
The Baker family and Eveline.
Sometimes it even mixed together to create a new kind of horror. It made her depend on her pills again she got prescribed for the trauma.

A rather shrill sounding giggle got her back to the present and she blinked once, twice to get her teary vision to clear enough to look at the baby in the pen.
Rose looked directly at her, holding her gaze like she was looking for something or waiting for approval for throwing the toy a few inches away from herself.

She was just barely 7 month old now and had endured to much for a child already.

"I am sorry, Rose." Mia whispered softly, bowing down into the pen to stroke the infants head.
Rose beamed at her for the attention.

"We will be okay. Somehow. I promise."

Just as her words left her mouth the doorbell rang.