Middle 3

AN: I'm ignoring Nikki, she caused too much trouble for Katianna in Serum.

"It's been a long time." Amy greeted him at the door, smiling and pulling him into a hug. She hadn't changed at all, he mused, in the time it had been since he had seen her last. Her smile was a little quieter, she looked a little older, wiser perhaps. She didn't vibrate with the energy she had once lived for.

"I wasn't sure you'd want to see me." Adam replied. She simply turned away, stepping inside and leaving him to follow.

"It's been too long, Adam, almost thirty years. It didn't take me long to realise that it was never completely your fault. But by then you'd disappeared into the realms of red tape and misinformation. I saw you make the papers a few times, it was nice to see that you were still alive." She turned back and gave him a grin. "Emmy, we have company." She shouted down a hall before leading him into a small sitting room and taking a seat.

"Emmy?" Adam asked.

"Emily, my daughter." She offered, grinning as a lanky blond teen appeared in the doorway, arms crossed, hair ruffled, and looking the picture of her mother when she was younger.

"Nice you meet you Emily." Adam said, holding out a hand to shake. She eyed it for a moment before taking it in a strong grasp. "I'm Adam, an old friend of your Mum." She grunted and headed back into what he assumed was her room.

"She's a teenager, what can I say." Amy laughed.

"I know exactly what you mean." Adam laughed along with her, thinking of Shalimar and Jesse when they had been in their teens.

"Have you had kids?"

"Not of my own, no. But I took in a young girl and then a younger boy at about that age. They've all grown up now."

"You missed the best bits."

"Oh, I don't know. To watch them grow into who they are today"

"Do you know where she is?" The question seemed to jump out of the blue, but Adam didn't need to ask who she was referring to. Her child, her and Rachel's child, the result of the combination of their genes and the small alterations that he had made to make the whole thing possible. The reason for Rachel's death.

"Yes, I've been keeping an eye on her, trying my best to keep her safe."

"Is she OK?"

"Yes." He wanted to tell her so much more, but it wasn't the way it could be. They had decided, a long long time ago. And no more would be said.

"I'm glad. I thought you'd sought me out to tell me"

"Oh no." He shook his head. "I'm sorry to scare you. I came here because I needed your help, your advice."

"Well, that's a new one." She laughed briefly, looking mildly shocked.

"I need you to dissuade me from offering this," He held the folder out to her. "To a couple I know."

She opened the simple cardboard folder, her breath catching as she saw the photo on front page. She trailed her fingers down the sides of it, her eyes shutting for a moment as she blinked away tears.

"But it didn't work"

"The situation is different, I know things now I didn't then. I can make it work this time." She looked at the photo again.

"I I don't have any pictures of her." She admitted, tears trailing down her cheeks unhindered. "I was upset, I threw them out. I was so angry with myself afterwards."

"Mom?" Emily was at her mother's side immediately as she saw the tears. "What is it? Do you want him to leave?" The older woman laughed softly.

"No, no. I'm OK. Just old memories." She handed the girl the file, showing her the photo. "My first love." She explained. "Eight years we were together. She died giving birth to our girl." Emily nodded and flicked through the file, seeming to read all of the information. Adam wondered exactly how much she would take in and understand from what she read.

"You tried to make a kid together? Two women? How is that possible?" She exclaimed, going back to a page and re-reading it.

"She's a smart kid." Amy laughed at Adam's surprise. He simply nodded.

"This is mind-blowing." The girl exclaimed again. She stopped on the last page, her face dropping. Adam knew what was shown there. The small note recording the day it all went wrong, the readouts, the information. The end. She looked at this for a moment, thinking of what she had heard them saying. A small slip of card fell out of the back of the folder, landing on her lap and she picked it up. 'A Thanksgiving' the main title read. It was a simple invitation card. "It didn't work." She said quietly.

"No." Adam answered simply.

"But the baby" She looked between the card and the file, confused at the inconsistencies. Adam looked to Amy, this was her story to tell.

"I decided to put her up for adoption. I was a mess, I couldn't have taken care of her as well as she needed. I don't know where she is, but I know she's OK. She'd be almost thirty now. Your older sister."

They watched as Emily flicked back to the photo on the front page.

"She's prettier than Libby." She said decisively. Amy laughed out loud.

"Oh good. Just don't compare her to Steve."

"Steve?" Adam asked.

"Her 'Father'." She replied, putting the word in finger quotes leaving Adam no doubts about the lengths this man had gone to in fatherhood. "He stuck around long enough to get me pregnant and appears now and again with money to soothe his conscience. Libby got me through the pregnancy and out the other side in one piece. She's still around but it's more or less platonic between us now. It didn't work out, and it's better just us, isn't it Emmy." The teen scowled at the nickname and even more at the kiss on the forehead that followed it.

"What was she like?" Emily asked, voice quiet. For a moment it looked like Amy might refuse, or close up, or retort in anger. A barrage of emotions crossed her face in a short space of time but eventually settled on calm regret.

"We met at a party when we were in college. I walked past her a couple of times and she was hidden in a corner looking terribly worried. She looked so adorable I pulled her on to the dance floor. Of course, I'd never seen her before so I didn't know about her leg and there was me trying to get her to dance. She tried so hard, but it was just hysterical. We had such a laugh." She smiled at the memory; her face lit, if just for a moment, with the energy Adam remembered from all those years ago.

"What was wrong with her leg?" Emily asked, curious.

"She was caught in an earthquake, a building landed on her." Adam knew that was only part of the story. He also knew the truth, the truth she had told few people in her life. Of her disturbed mother and often absent father. Found by her mother kissing another girl her mother had flown into a rage and dragged her to the nearest church where she had been locked in the catacombs under the church when the earthquake had hit. The church, of old construction and not to the standards usually requested of buildings in the area, had collapsed around her and she had only been found before she suffocated because the girl who she had been found with told the rescue crew where she was. Her mother had died in the quake and her father seemed somehow relieved to get as far away from them as possible. She had moved in with her grandmother as soon as she had recovered enough from her injuries to be moved. "It left her with this terrible limp. At first I thought she was faking it to get out of the sports, or at least making it seem worse then it was, because we went out one day on a botany project and we walked miles that day and her limp got softer as we went along. By the end of the day you might not have thought she was the same woman. So I dragged her up this mountain somewhere, I can't even remember where it was. I decided that if I saw her struggling we'd stop and go back down. I didn't even think that it would be worse for her going down than going up. We got to the very top of this peak and I almost had to carry her back down. We had such a good laugh though, we did it again. It didn't half get me fit." She looked down at her hands and they all sat silent for a moment, waiting for her to go on. "Adam, if you think you can get this to work." She lifted the file and handed it back to him. "If you really think you can make it work then give it to them. Nothing will make them happier than a child. I couldn't imagine life without Emily. I only wish I could have Rachel here to share it with me."