A/N: I'm so glad that you guys are enjoying this story! I read and love every single review that I receive for all of my stories and I'm so so so SO excited that you guys really like this piece. This chapter is massive… lots of the questions that you have been asking are answered in this chapter but this is just the beginning of this little journey that I've concocted. We've barely scratched the surface, my dear reader :) Alright, happy reading and as always, leave a review! I love hearing your thoughts!

At your funeral, I was so upset
So upset… so upset
In your life you were larger than this
Statue-statuesque…

I see signs now all the time
That you're not dead, you're sleeping
I believe in anything
That brings you back home to me…

"Signs" – Bloc Party

Chapter 2 – Signs

There was a bright light and for a minute, he thought that he was dead. A bright white light usually meant that he was dead. The physical pain alone made him want to roll over and die and he just wanted everything to melt away. He wanted to completely detach from his body. His eyes opened slowly, painfully adjusting to the blinding lights of the room. The room was relatively silent with the exception of a steady beeping that coincided with his own heartbeat.

Where was he?

Or a better question: who was he?

He couldn't remember anything… not his name, his age, or even the brunette that was sitting beside him. Her hands were clasped around his and her cheek gently rested on top of his hand, which was wet from her tears. He slowly flexed his fingers and she quickly sat up. He blinked slowly, trying to take everything in. This woman sitting in front of him was stunning… sleek long brown hair with blond streaks, full lips, light eyes and a sweet face. The only thing that was off about her was the fact that her cheeks were stained with running mascara and her eyes were red from crying and probably exhaustion.

"Oh, Johnny! Thank god! You're awake!" she cried as she flung himself onto his chest.

So, apparently his name was Johnny. He had his name but nothing else. What was he supposed to say? He didn't remember a single thing about what happened or who he was or who this woman was to him.

"Where am I?" he finally managed to whisper.

"You're in the hospital… you were in a horrible car accident… do you remember?" she asked, putting her delicate hand on his cheek but Johnny shook his head.

"What do you remember?" she asked.

"I—I don't—I don't remember anything…" he said and the woman's bottom lip trembled.

"You—you don't remember anything? Do you remember me?" she asked.

"I'm sorry… I don't…" he said and she closed her eyes, letting one tear slide down her cheek.

She quickly brushed it away and Johnny caught a glimpse of the ring on her finger and he immediately felt horrible. They were obviously serious if he had given her a huge ring like that.

"I'm—I'm going to find the doctor…" she said, standing up.

She quickly made her way to the door, trying to hide the fact that she had started crying again from him. He sighed heavily and sat back on his bed, trying to make himself remember. He didn't like being without a past. It was an unsettling sensation, knowing nothing about his life or where he was. Did he have a family? What about his parents? Did he have any siblings? What about children?

And for some reason, that last thought shook him to his core.

"You can do this…"

Carly was holding onto Lulu hand as they sat in her car and Lulu took a deep breath. Listening to Carly's words, Lulu nodded quickly and squeezed her cousin's hand tighter. Lulu inhaled sharply and closed her eyes. Baby steps, she told herself… and Carly was here. She could do this.

"Are you ready?" Carly asked.

"Yes…" Lulu exhaled.

The sky was dark and gray. It had been raining hard for the past few days and most of the roads headed in and out of Port Charles were deemed to be unsafe. The news had been cluttered with stories about car accidents along the main road in and out of Port Charles. However, the rain had stopped sometime last night and Carly suggested to Lulu that they would go today. Lulu's heart pounded as she and Carly walked through the little black gate into the yard. So many emotions were going through Lulu's mind. Déjà vu was trying to take over, trying to dredge up bad memories, but Lulu just shut her eyes and held Carly's hand tighter.

"Are you ok? We don't have to do this today…" Carly said, putting a hand on Lulu's shoulder but Lulu shook her head.

"No… I have to do this… I need to do this…" Lulu said firmly.

Carly nodded and they continued their walk through the yard. The grounds were expansive and well kept. The grass was springy beneath her boots and the air was fresh and calm like it always was after a big storm. The wind ran through the leaves of the tall willow trees, making a calming rustling sound. It was so peaceful, contrary to the painful circumstances that brought Lulu here. Carly stopped walking and that jolted Lulu out of her daydreams.

They had reached their destination.

Lulu looked down at her feet and felt her chest tighten. She slowly knelt down on the wet grass and Carly sat beside her, never letting go of her hand. With her free hand, Lulu removed a few stray leaves that had fallen onto the marble plaque before her. Her breath quickened and her eyes began to water.

"Lulu… it's ok to cry…" Carly whispered as she gently stroked the back of her head.

Lulu looked up at Carly and nodded. She knew that this was going be difficult. Her mother had always told her to confront and face her problems instead of running away from them. She sat there, staring at the plaque in front of her, feeling a million different emotions per second.

"Lulu? Are you alright?" Carly asked, taking notice of her cousin's blank expression.

Lulu didn't respond. She knew that Carly meant well and probably didn't know what else to say at that moment but inside she was screaming. She wasn't alright and she would never be. She was never going to move past this. Everyone had told her that no one ever gets over something like this and it was ok for her to still mourn but Lulu just felt that she should be at peace with what happened after all this time and she wasn't.

It was cruel and unfair.

Withdrawing her hand from Carly, Lulu quickly removed her gloves and let her bare fingertips graze over the engraving on the plaque.

Aura Celia Zacchara

This was so wrong. This wasn't how things were supposed to be. Her heart clenched as the memories that she had and the memories that she would never have began to flood back. Lulu's limbs began to shake violently and Carly immediately flung her arms around her cousin as she broke down into hysterics. Carly cradled Lulu's head to her chest as Lulu grasped Carly's jacket, her sobs raking through her entire body. Carly just sat there, rocking Lulu back and forth, repeating over and over again that everything was going to be ok.

"It's not fair! It's just not fair, Carly! Why? Why did it have to be my daughter?" Lulu wailed.

"I know… I know… shhhh… it's ok… I've got you…" Carly said, holding her tightly.

"My daughter… my baby…" Lulu sobbed.

Carly squeezed Lulu even tighter. Her heart was breaking for her cousin but what else could she say? What could you say to a person who has had to bury their own child? Carly let a few of her own tears fall down her face as she stroked Lulu's golden hair softly. Carly, of course, was there when both Johnny and Lulu buried their daughter and seeing how it destroyed them both, went straight home and held Morgan tightly, thankful that she was able to hold her son in her arms every day and watch him grow up. Lulu would never get that chance.

"It's ok… it's ok to miss her, Lulu…" Carly said, her voice cracking as well.

"Mr. Zacchara, all of the tests are conclusive… you have retrograde amnesia as a result of your head injuries from the car accident."

Johnny just looked at the doctor as if he had grown an extra head. He didn't know what the hell 'Retrograde Amnesia' meant.

"It's the reason why you can't remember anything prior to your accident… but it's uncertain when or if you'll get your memory back…" the doctor said.

"You mean I might be stuck like this? Not remembering anything?" Johnny asked, clearly outraged.

"I'm sorry that I don't have better answers for you… if you'll excuse me, I have to finish making my rounds but I'll be back to check on you… do you need anything for the pain?" the doctor asked but Johnny shook his head.

Well, at least he knew that he didn't like hospitals. Brook, who had told him her name before she went to fetch the doctor, sat by his bedside and stared straight at him. He wondered if she saw any resemblance to the man that she loved in him now by the way that he was acting. Maybe that could ease his mind a little.

"Brook, can I ask you a favor?" he asked.

"You can ask me anything, Johnny…" she said, taking his hand.

He felt a little bit uncomfortable with her closeness and he flinched a little bit when her hands met his. She quickly withdrew her hands and looked down at the floor.

"I'm sorry… too soon, right?" she muttered.

"No, it's ok… I just—I just need some time to get used to everything." He said.

"So… what's this favor?" she asked quietly.

"Well… I'm assuming that since we—we were planning on getting married before my accident, you can probably fill in the gaps about my life…" Johnny said.

"Of course… what do you want to know?" Brook said, a smile returning to her lips.

"Well, what about my family? Do I have family?" he asked.

"Your mother passed away when you were eight… and your relationship with your father and your sister is… what did you say? Oh, right… 'Complicated'… When I was making the guest list for our wedding, I wanted to invite them but you said no, citing that it was too complicated to explain… but I think that you said that your sister was living in Greece with her new husband or something and you don't talk a lot about your father or where he is…" she said.

So, he was pretty much on his own, Johnny gathered. He had a sister that he didn't speak to living in Europe and a father whose whereabouts were unknown. He wasn't sure if he wanted to hear much more. His life sounded pretty depressing prior to his accident.

"Anybody else? Cousins? Aunts or Uncles?" he asked.

"You mentioned something about an Uncle Rudy once or twice but I didn't press it… you don't talk much about your family…" Brook said quietly.

"Well what about kids?" he asked.

Brook's eyes immediately snapped up to his and he saw her blanch. That question seemed to hit a nerve. Was that sadness in her eyes or fear? He couldn't quite tell. He didn't know if that was an insensitive question to ask since he couldn't remember anything prior to six hours ago but for some reason, in the back of his mind, he knew he had to ask.

"K—Kids?" she stammered.

"I know that we're relatively young and everything but… it's not entirely out of the question to ask if I—oh, I mean, if we have any kids… I don't know… I just… I'm grasping at straws here. I have no idea what's going on and I just want to get my life back…" he said.

"No… we—we don't have any kids, John… you—you said that you didn't want any kids… but I was hoping that you'd change your mind after we got married…" Brook said, looking down at her hands.

"Do you know why?" he asked quickly and Brook sighed.

"You didn't like to talk about it…" she said.

"I wasn't much of a talker before the accident, was I?" he chuckled and she managed to smile a little bit.

"You were complex and mysterious… that's what drew me to you in the first place… you've had enough horrible experiences to last a lifetime and you understandably didn't like to dwell on it…" she said.

Johnny sighed and shook his head. He was a real piece of work. He was so royally screwed up that he shut himself off emotionally from his fiancée in order to not burden her with his tragic little story. It was clear to him that he didn't open himself up to her before the accident and that she was starved for that deep emotional connection. It was understandable when you love someone that profoundly but when he looked into Brook's eyes, there was a sense of desperation in her quest to be his emotional safe haven, like almost if her life had depended on it.

"Tell me about how we met…" he said, quickly changing the subject, and she smiled.

"My Uncle Dillon's wedding… he's a famous director and he married some B-list actress from one of his movies… I don't really have much use for her… she tries way too hard to be my friend, thinking that it'll get her into the tabloids so she can have some sense of relevance but anyway… that's not the point… I was at the wedding by myself… I had just found out that my ex-boyfriend was cheating on me and I was in a really horrible place and so were you and we just sat there and talked for hours during the reception…" Brook said.

"And the rest is history?" he asked, smiling.

"It was love at first sight… well, at least for me… we—we were complicated at first…" she said softly.

Complicated. That was a word that seemed to come up a lot between the two of them. He was complicated, they were complicated… when could life just be simple? Why couldn't two people just fall in love normally and have their happily ever after with the house, white picket fence and the golden retriever?

"Did we set a date?" he asked, observing the five carat diamond ring on her finger, and he saw her face fall again.

"Many dates, actually… there was always something pushing it back… tours, business trips, family emergencies, auditions… it's hard to plan a wedding between two business people…" she said.

"Let me guess… it's complicated?" Johnny chuckled and she smiled sadly.

"Exactly…" she said.

Lulu stared straight at the basket of French fries in front of her. The exit from the cemetery and the ride back into town had passed by in a blur.

A horrible tear filled blur.

"Lulu, come on… you have to eat something… you said that you were craving these fries when you got back into town…" Carly said, pushing the basket of fries towards her.

Lulu sighed heavily and picked up a piece and nibbled on it slowly. She hadn't meant to completely lose it at her daughter's grave. Of course, it was much more restrained than the last time she had been there when she sat in the rain for three hours at the cemetery and there had been a massive manhunt for her in the entire town. Tracy and Luke were the ones who found her, soaking wet and curled up on the grass with her head on top of the marble plaque.

After being released from the hospital for hypothermia, Lulu immediately went to France to spend time with her mother.

"I'm sorry…" Lulu muttered.

"You have nothing to be sorry for, Lulu…" Carly said, reaching across the table to take her hand.

"I didn't mean to be so hysterical…" Lulu sighed.

"It's ok… no one expecting you to be ok with this…" Carly said, dipping a French fry into some ketchup, and Lulu nodded.

"My mom said that it was going to take some time… but I just… I just figured that after putting some distance between myself and this place, I could come back and—" Lulu started but Carly shook her head.

"There's no one step cure… it—it took me awhile to accept Michael's condition… and I never got past it either… I just had to think about what Michael would've wanted for me and how he would've wanted me to live my life and not have my grief take over everything…" Carly said.

"And now you have him back…" Lulu muttered.

"Oh, Lulu… I didn't—I didn't mean to be insensitive… with talking about Michael… I'm sorry…" Carly apologized.

"No… you know what… you're right… I have to just think about what Aura would want for me… and she wouldn't want me to be like this…" Lulu said, taking another French fry.

"Exactly…" Carly said, stirring her cup of hot chocolate, and Lulu sighed.

"It's just… it's just that sometimes it seems unreal that four years ago, Johnny and I buried our daughter… Aura's supposed to be starting kindergarten, taking ballet lessons and playing soccer… just doing normal things that a four year old should be doing…" Lulu began.

"No parent should have to go through what you and Johnny went through…" Carly said softly.

"I just feel like sometimes I'm living in this nightmare, you know? And I'm just waiting to wake up and she's just going to be there in her room…" Lulu said before taking a sip of her Diet Coke.

Lulu set down her glass and picked up another French fry. She looked past Carly and saw a young mother with a little girl who couldn't have been more than six years old. The mother was taking off her daughter's pastel pink raincoat and matching pink knit cap. The little girl had brown curls and was staring adoringly up at her mother. A warmness flooded Lulu's chest and she smiled slowly.

"What is it?" Carly asked as she turned around to look at the mother-daughter pair that Lulu was staring at.

"There were so many things I wanted to do with Aura…" Lulu said.

"Like what?" Carly asked.

Lulu's eyes met Carly's and she smiled. Taking a handful of French fries, Lulu proceeded to tell Carly all of the plans and dreams that she had for her daughter… dreams of school plays, Christmases, piano recitals, birthdays, high school and college graduations…

Brook slipped out of Johnny's hospital room after he had been given some pain medication for his other injuries from the accident. The nurse suggested that he should get some sleep and Johnny told Brook to do the same. Coat in hand and flanked by her manager and bodyguard, Brook headed out towards the back of the hospital, wanting to avoid the paparazzi that had staked out the hospital after getting wind of Johnny's accident when she ran into Johnny's doctor.

"Oh! Doctor Embers… I'm glad I ran into you… I have a quick question…" Brook said.

"Sure, Ms. Ashton…" Dr. Embers said, looking up from his clipboard.

"Is there anything that you would suggest in order to jog Johnny's memory? Maybe bring some photographs or have his sister fly into see him?" she asked.

"The brain is a complex muscle… there's no one way to bring someone's memory back… but familiar surroundings can help… maybe a visit to his hometown…" Dr. Embers suggested and Brook felt the color drain from her face as he suggested taking Johnny back to Port Charles.

"I—I don't think that would be a good idea… Johnny had a rough childhood and I don't think that going back to his hometown will bring up any good memories…" Brook stammered.

"Like I said, the brain is a complex muscle… you don't know what will be the stimulus that will be the catalyst for his memory to return… it's ultimately up to you and John but if I were you, I wouldn't discount it… if you'll excuse me… I'm due for an emergency consult…" Dr. Embers said before taking his leave.

Brook's heart was beating furiously against her chest. Of course she wanted Johnny to get his memory back. She wanted the man that she loved to be whole again but going back to Port Charles, with all of its demons and ghosts was not her ideal way of going about it. Johnny only went into Port Charles once a year… and it was always for the same reason.

It was another thing that Johnny didn't like to talk about.

But Brook knew the entire story. She quickly made it down the hallway, not listening to anything that her manager was saying about rescheduling press conferences, appearances at Federico's stores and the pushed back date of her next album. She pressed her fingertips to her temple and willed herself not to cry. It was the reason why he was in that car, speeding along that slick highway. It was the reason why he swore to her that he was never going to have another child.

He was still haunted by the daughter that he had lost four years ago.

There were a thousand reasons why she shouldn't take him to Port Charles. Some were more selfish than selfless than others but inside, something was screaming at her not to. She had been fighting the ghosts of Johnny's past for the past four years, trying to maneuver the labyrinth that he called his heart, and possibility of coming face to face with them was alarming. She clutched her cell phone in her hand while her mind went back and forth, debating what she should do. There were things that Brook didn't want Johnny to remember.

And the number one thing that she hoped that he would never remember was living there…