"Lucas, wake up."

A voice came to him from far away. He groaned and resisted it. He was comfortable and happy.

"Lucas," the voice called out again, shaking his shoulder. He recognized the voice as belonging to Ellie and his eyes opened slowly.

"Huh?"

"Come on honey, we're back at your hotel. I can't carry you upstairs so you're going to have to wake up and walk."

Lucas rubbed his eyes and looked around him. Sean was gone, and he was lying across the entire back seat.

"Where is Sean?"

"I dropped him off already. You slept through it all."

"Oh, wow, I'm tired," he said, sitting up. He ran his hands through his hair and rubbed his eyes again. He slid out of the backseat and groggily stood.

"Come on, let's get you upstairs so that you can go back to sleep." He nodded sleepily as Ellie put her arm around his waist, guiding him through the hotel's parking garage.

Once upstairs, he dug through his bag and pulled out his pajama pants and a t-shirt, walking into the bathroom to change as Ellie went and looked out of the window at the city spread out below and in front of her. Lucas came out of the bathroom and stood in the doorway between the two rooms, watching her.

She sighed softly. "This is so hard Lucas. This is everything and everyone I know and I'm not a part of any of it anymore," she whispered, touching her hands to the glass. "Sean was going to be your godfather, but I…Lawrence took you away. He told me, while you were asleep, that he had hoped that Lawrence would stay here so that Sean could see you. You were the last link he had to us, and you are the last link I have to anything…"

Lucas came forward, putting his hand on her shoulder. "I'll be that link for you as long as you want me to be."

She turned her head to look at him. "Until you grow up and have your own life. What then Lucas? You'll have a wife and children to pay attention to someday, and I refuse to siphon any time away from them."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "I'm not going to let go that easily. I've missed 16 years of having you in my life and it isn't going to end that way. I don't want you to go and I won't let you without a fight." She turned and looked out again, saying nothing.

"You don't understand how badly I wish you could come back. If I could invent the technology that would allow it, I promise you I would do it. I would bring both you and Gavin back so that I could have my parents with me. I want it so bad I can taste it, but I have you with me now, and I'll take you in any capacity I can."

Her hand moved up to wipe away a silent tear and she turned to look at him once again. "If I could come back Lucas, I'd fight Heaven and Hell to do it, you know I would. I'll be here as long as you need and want me. Don't worry; I won't just disappear on you."

"Good, I've had enough of that in my life already. A kid needs some stability," he said with a half smile.

Ellie laughed lightly and touched his cheek gently. "You're a good man Lucas. A mother couldn't dream of having a better son."

"You should tell that to Cynthia."

The look that darkened Ellie's face took him by surprise. "Forget about her," Ellie growled. "She left you to nannies instead of raising you and loving you like she should have. First she stole my husband and then she stole my son; all the while facilitating the lies that Lawrence fed you. Had she been an honorable woman she would have pressed Lawrence to tell you about me so that at least you would know, but she couldn't do that. She made you hers, she lied to everyone including herself and there was nothing I could do to stop it. You were my child!" she cried angrily. As she did, a glass sitting on the bathroom counter shattered, startling them both.

"Wait…you said she stole your husband. What are you not telling me?"

Ellie's hands clenched into fists and she began pacing in her agitation. "She was sleeping with Lawrence already, probably even before we were married. I wasn't enough for him right from the beginning, and I knew it, but still I married him. I believed him when he told me it was nothing, that he was breaking it off with her!"

"Wait…"

"I bet she was happy that I died! She had him then, and as a bonus she got you! She didn't have to take a chance of 'ruining her figure' by having one of her own. I wanted to hurt her so badly, but I couldn't! So I just looked after you as best I could and tried to protect you."

"Mom, I'm so sorry…"

"It wasn't fair Lucas! It wasn't fair that I had to stand idly by while you grew up! I was only able to give you one thing," she said, becoming ever more upset.

"What was that?"

"Your teddy bear…you named him Ridley."

"You gave me that?"

She nodded. "She didn't know where it came from, she figured it was just one of the toys that you'd gotten at the hospital and she let you keep it. She got rid of everything I'd bought for you and redecorated your nursery."

"I still have him," Lucas whispered.

"Do you? I wanted to touch you, hold you, but I couldn't; I wasn't strong enough yet."

"But where were you? All of that time? If, when you showed up on the SeaQuest, you didn't know what happened, where was this part of you, the part that knew?"

"I don't know; my only guess is that Gavin somehow locked it away. When I went through the memory screen, it all came back. I hate them Lucas, I'd destroy them if I could."

"Well, the plan…"

"That's not how I mean Lucas."

"Then how…" he began as it slowly dawned on him. "Oh."

She shook her head as if trying to clear it. "I'm sorry; I shouldn't do this, not with you."

"It's what you feel and it just adds another dimension to it all," he said, grabbing her by the shoulders to stop her pacing. He took her hands in his and gently unclenched the small fingers. "It's all okay now."

"How do you do that?"

"Do what?"

"Become your father."

He smiled. "I don't know. I didn't know I was doing it." He pulled her close and hugged her. She wrapped her arms around his neck as best she could, seemingly needing this contact with him. "They can't take me away this time," he whispered.

At this, she began to sob, and he just held her. He had never considered before what the circumstances might have been or where she had been all of this time. She had been a sideline observer, unable to act or stop anything from happening. She'd been forced to watch her child taken from her and witness his growing up never knowing she'd even existed.

It suddenly hit him that she wasn't the 41 year old that she would have been had she lived. She was the 24 year old who had been murdered, whose life had been brought to a screeching halt by a jealous man. Everything she felt, everything that went on around her was filtered through the eyes and soul of someone who hadn't aged.

She pulled away from him, wiping her eyes. "I'm sorry Lucas, really, I shouldn't do this."

"You're entitled to feel, I'd be worried if you didn't," he replied, walking over to bed and flopping down.

She smirked and flopped down next to him. He turned over onto his side to look at her as she just lay there, staring up at the ceiling. "I miss Gavin," she said.

"I know," he replied.

She looked at him and bit her lip. "But you need to get some sleep." She rolled over to face him, and began to stroke his hair, as she had done when he'd first found out about her. He sighed heavily and let his eyes close.

"Goodnight," he whispered as he fell asleep.