1. Paris, 1973. A month since DOFP.

Lorna was afraid. For the last 11 years of her life, her periods had been regular and efficient, like a well-oiled clock. Sure, they'd been a hellish clock, but they'd been stable. Reliable. One of the few solid things life had ever given her. And yet, the impossible had seemingly happened. She was late.

Lorna was a sensible girl, despite her confusing childhood. At 11 years of age, she was brought to the sudden realisation that the man that had raised her, albeit begrudgingly, was not the man with whom she shared half her genes. Her father was not her father. He'd told her himself, spat bitter words in her face on that horrible day, the day when it first happened.

"I knew it, Susanna. I knew it! She's a freak, just like him."

"Just like who?"

"Let's just say, kid, you're no child of mine."

She'd been feeling moodier than normal as of late and when Jimmy, the man she'd spent half her life believing to be her flesh and blood, had snapped at her as he usually did for not reaching his typical standards of perfection, she had snapped right back. Only not with words. The house had shaken with quaking metal, much to her terror, and her hair grew a shocking green from the roots. Her first period started the very next day.

How she had hated her hair. She had been so disgusted with the new colour at first that she shaved it all off, but it was no use. It was stuck a startling shade of electric green. The colour that people had always admired in her eyes was a cause for alarm in the form of her hair. To this day, she still dyed it brown, though the roots grew so fast, it was a weekly struggle. Throughout her teens, she would improvise with hats and hairbands, wigs and bows and clips. Aged 17, she had stood in front of the mirror and sliced it all off to her chin in a fit of anger.

Now it was shoulder length, she hadn't cut in over a month and though she'd dyed it only a few days ago, the roots were already showing. She wondered if stress had something to do with it. She had a horrible inkling as to why her period would be late, but she didn't want to accept it. If that was the reason, then it was too soon to know anyway. The last time she had done anything that could risk its happening was only a month ago, a few days after her last period. She remembered the night with relish.

Lorna was a hard-worker, responsible and intelligent, she'd been top of her class in high school, a combination of popular and edgy that saved from being teased and gave her an aura of mystery that allowed for an element of privacy that would have otherwise been unachievable at the small-town school. She had graduated a year early and received a generous scholarship to study at Yale. She worked two jobs, saving up to make up the remainder. After graduating with a major in English and a minor in French, she went abroad to teach English in Paris. During her time off, she would travel, taking trains to places that were wonderfully foreign and European and so different to everything she'd ever known growing up in the Dane household.

It was during a weekend trip to Amsterdam when she met him. She and her friend Jane, her British roommate who was there to teach English too, had never been before and were excited to see all the sights, to explore a new city. They'd got drunk on the last night and gone out and that's when they ran into them. A group of American soldiers who were caught between travels, having flown back from Vietnam and were having a spot of fun before getting back to America. They'd all been fairly young, reserved. She had caught his eye and been unable to look away from that bright blue gaze. It was electrifying.

She sighed and hoped that her suspicions weren't true, all the while cursing herself for choosing to let her hair down quite so much that night.

A/N

I'll be posting more soon! I'm not so good with schedules, so I'll update whenever I have something :)

Lorna is 22. Her mother is Susanna Dane and her stepdad is an OC/douche called Jimmy.