She sat in a bright little room. Dr. Fiona Morgan had wanted to talk to her, after she had gotten to know that she was Neil's mother. Dr. Morgan was preparing some tea and she waited. After what Neil had said to her, she had started to cry. It wasn't because of what he had said. It was, because he was right in somehow. They really hadn't shown him that they love him, but what should she do? How could she show him that this had been a mistake she regretted badly? He had the feeling as of she had lost her son for ever. It was as if one part of her heart felt empty, lonely. Dr. Morgan came back and gave her a cup of tea.

"Don't take it to your heart. He's a bit confused. That's a normal reaction." Dr. Morgan tried to comfort her.

"That's easier said than done." She sighed. How could she explain the past to her son?

"You have to understand that you haven't met the adult Neil, but the teenager who has no idea what has happened."

"That's true, but nevertheless it hurts and I don't want to know what he would accuse me for, if he knew that he's in real twenty-four now." She took a sip of tea. She had talked to Chuck about their relationship they had to Neil, when he had stopped to be a rebellious teenager. She had been shocked, when she had to find out that nothing had changed then. Nothing. They still had ignored him, especially after he had moved into an own apartment at the age of eighteen. She wasn't able to believe that she hadn't shown her pride towards him, after he had graduated from high school, after getting his diploma, after entering NASA, after he had been assured his first mission. How could she have been indifferent about something like that? She would have been, if it had been Marc. What had been different with Neil? What had gone wrong that there was such a huge gap between them?

"Why do you care so much for my son?" She asked on. Her thoughts went in circles and she needed answers and solution and no memories about what had happened.

"It was my shift, when he was admitted to the hospital. He was so young and so bad injured. I got reminded of my own son. And then this story here. I just wasn't able to see him suffering and then I just took him to my heart."

"His eyes." She only answered. His eyes were what make someone love him. No matter how cold hearted he began to behave, if one looked into his eyes one could see that he didn't mean being cold. These brown eyes told the whole truth of his inside, thus she knew in how much pain he had been, when he had cussed all these words at her. She had seen that he suffered under his confusing feelings, not knowing what was right, what not.

"What?"

"His eyes are the mirror of his soul. There is nothing he could hide. When he told me that he doesn't believe that I love him, I could see all his confusion in his eyes. He had no idea whether he should hate me or not." She took another sip of tea.

"You have a son?" She asked Dr. Morgan. It was a good feeling to talk to someone who knew what it was like to be a mother.

"Yes. My husband I." She answered.

"Dr. McQueans, I guess is your husband?"

"Yes. I kept my name. It's easier in my job, if not everybody knows who's my husband." She understood this much too well. She sometimes wished that she would bear another name. It was hard to be the woman in the shadow of an important and famous man. But she had found her way to deal with it. This was the recipe how to keep a marriage like that upright.

"Does your son go here to school?" She went on. Maybe this woman could help her with the relationship to her son. She had won a little hope back. Maybe she hadn't lost him. Maybe she only needed to win him back again. She only needed someone who showed her the right direction.

"No. He died a few years ago. He was fifteen." 'Oh my God. Oh no. And I?' She felt miserable. She was crying, because her son didn't want to see her and this woman in front of her really had lost her son.

"I'm so sorry. I…mean I honestly feel silly. Sitting here and crying about my son who ignores me, with a lot reason and you.…"

"Oh, no. Don't feel silly. You are a mother and you have all right to be concerned about your son. This shows that he really means something to you."

"But it's hard. I mean now where he's not at home … I miss these noises and…his quirks which normally drove me crazy." She always had been in rage, when Neil had spread his stuff in the whole house and his room. No matter when she had entered it, it had been a mess. She had tidied it, after he had left. A few days later she had wished that he had been there to create his usual chaos. Ordered his room was lifeless. She liked the ordered atmosphere a lot. In her study, in her bathroom, in her bedroom, kitchen, everywhere, even in Marc's room it was a warm atmosphere, when everything was in order, but Neil's room it didn't match. It felt cold in there.

"I can imagine. After Jason had died I began to miss his chaos he always left in the bathroom."

"After Neil had left I started to miss the noises coming from his room in the night, while I'm lying in bed. Without them it's hard to fall asleep." Another thing that had been missing. She had wished that he youngest would get some more sleep. But it was obvious that he didn't need more. She would have died with only five or four hours sleep a night, but Neil didn't bother. Dr. Morgan gave her a warm smile and nodded.

"May I ask why your son died so early?" She asked. In somehow she wasn't able to imagine that this was possible. She would die herself if her son would leave earth before she would do so. She wasn't able to believe that a mother could life with this in the back of her head.

"Because it was his time, in somehow. He died in a car accident. They had no chance to save him. Thus when I started to treat your son, I wasn't able to let him die. I had to do everything to keep him under the living and thus I did everything I could have done."

"And I'm endless grateful for this. I can't imagine what I would have done, when I'd lost him for ever."

"You need to give him some time, until he had digested everything."

"But this doesn't change the fact that we treated him so bad. I have no idea why we did so. We love him, we really do, but in somehow we didn't know how to treat him right, I mean…"

"Sometimes it's hard to be a parent of such a gifted child. We had problems with Jason as well. We didn't know that he was that gifted. His grades in school had been more than bad and he didn't behave like a gifted child. He wasn't quiet and eager to learn. He was wild and he was rude. A teacher later told us that he might be underchallenged and that his behaviour only was another measure for him to get rid of all his energy."

"Fits to my boy." Why hadn't any of his teachers seen these signs?

"How was your husband able to hide the truth from you for so long?"

"He wasn't. I always felt that there was something wrong, but I didn't ask him. I knew that he one time would start to tell me anyway and he did so. My husband cried when he told me about what had happened. It was the first time he cried because of our youngest. It was the first time he showed me that he loves him too. And then things had become so clear. Why he had been so rude towards me and why he was so nervous, why he wasn't able to sleep. Thus it was my fault that he didn't talk to me earlier." Seeing Chuck drenched in tears had made her frighten. She never had seen him that way. He always had been cold and rational, but that had been far away from this usual behaviour.

"You both love your son. I believe you."