The flight back to Berkeley from Bonita somehow seemed longer than the trip down. Robert, Anna, and Emma, all emotionally drained, spoke very little on the plane, instead distracting themselves with their electronic devices.

Robert waited by the open car door after he and Emma exited the Uber at Robin and Patrick's house. When Anna didn't get out after them, he looked at her questioningly.

Anna averted her eyes. "It's crowded here. There's a lot going on. I'm going to get a hotel room. Alone. Goodbye, Robert."

Before he could respond, Anna reached across the vehicle and pulled the door shut. Once the car pulled safely away from the curb, leaving Robert standing behind, Anna finally let herself dissolve into tears.

Anna had barely gotten into her hotel room and changed into her satin pajamas before there was a soft, familiar knock pattern at her door. Anna rolled her eyes in the direction of the door. She had no desire to see her ex-husband. Why hadn't he understood that when she hadn't gotten out of the car with him?

A soft knock again. She tried to ignore it.

Robert's voice was muffled through the door. "You might as well let me in, Anna… I have my lock pick kit with me. You'd save us both a lot of time."

With an irritated huff, Anna flung the door open. "What do you want? You couldn't be bothered even to speak to me on the flight."

"Emma was there." Robert walked into the room as though he belonged there, irritating the hell out of Anna.

"Fine, we're alone… So, talk."

"Are you ever going to be able to be honest with me?" Robert sank down onto the front edge of the bed. "After all of these years… You've never been able to do it. You're never going to be able to trust me fully. There's always going to be something."

It pissed her off, the way he came into her hotel room, uninvited, spouting his self-righteousness while bringing up decades of pain.

What pissed her off even more was that he was right. There wasn't much Anna hated more than Robert Xavier Scorpio being right.

"Robert…" Anna sighed and sat gingerly next to him on the bed.

"Why, Anna? Why won't you give yourself to me fully?" Robert demanded.

"You know exactly why, Robert… It's the training."

"Bullshit." Robert grabbed her face in his hands, forcing her to look him in the eyes. "Bullshit, and you know it. We're not even spies anymore. We are no longer bound to the WSB. We're bound only to ourselves, and I thought, to each other."

Anna pulled back from him, and he dropped his hands from her cheeks. "What do you want me to say?"

"I just want the truth from you. How did this even happen?"

"We were newlyweds, Robert…" Anna fiddled with the knot necklace he had given her. "There were plenty of chances for me to have gotten pregnant."

"But why did you never tell me about this?"

"Because I didn't want to think of what I had lost, one way or another…" Anna whispered. "Either our child… Or an opportunity."

Robert raked a hand through his hair. "I could have looked for him, Anna. If I had only known…"

"Or you could have spent your life chasing something that didn't exist." Anna said quietly.

"He does exist, though!"

"I don't remember him, Robert! I don't remember the pregnancy. I don't remember the birth. Do you have any idea how much that hurts?"

Anna's hand went to her chest, where she could feel physical pain at the thought. Knowing that Alessandro was alive and well, she desperately wanted to remember anything she could about him. But there was still nothing.

"All I remember is being sick… So sick. Throwing up all day, every day. I convinced myself that it had to be seasickness and nerves and nothing more because I knew that if I was pregnant, there was no telling what Faison would do if he got his hands on your baby."

"He might have killed him." Robert murmured.

"Exactly."

Robert took Anna's hand and ran his thumb over the back of it. "We never really got our chance, did we, Luv? We finally got back together, started life again as a family, talked about having more kids, then…

"We lost it all." Anna finished quietly.

Her eyes closed, and a single tear slipped out, making a glossy path down her cheek. Robert pressed his lips against the tear, tasting the salt of it as he wrapped an arm around Anna's shoulders to draw her near to him. His forehead pressed against her temple.

"This is another chapter in our lives that we're going to figure out together, Anna. We have a son, and he's alive. You may not remember it, but you carried him safely through everything that happened to you in the explosion." Robert rocked Anna gently in his arms. "Alessandro is alive because of how strong you are."

"We have to find out what happened with him, Robert." Anna said, wiping tears from her face with the back of her hand. "Who raised him, how they got him... We need to know everything."

"I've already been in touch with him." Robert grazed her forehead with his lips. We are meeting him at noon tomorrow… Hopefully, we'll get some answers."

"Thank you, Robert… For setting that up. I don't really know what I would do without you." Anna tilted his head up toward her, softly kissing his lips.

His hand wound its way into her hair, pulling her closer into the kiss. Anna melted into the safety of his arms, her hands framing his face as she kissed him more urgently.

She needed to feel whole again in the brokenness of her memories; Robert's touch and the way he felt inside of her was one thing that she had never forgotten.

He understood what she needed. Laying her back on the bed, Robert unbuttoned the top of her blue satin pajama top, sliding his hand in to cup one of her bare breasts, sighing into her mouth as his hand squeezed it. Anna unbuttoned the rest of the top and let it fall away, then pulled his shirt off his body.

Robert gazed down at her, moving his hand to give attention to her other breast. "Have I ever told you how beautiful you are, Anna?"

"Not today." Anna said with a slight smile.

"I need to fix that." Robert leaned over her, running his tongue over her breast. "I need to tell you that all day, every day."

His fingers slipped under the waistband of her pants and eased them off of her hips, casting them to the floor. "Mmm… No panties?"

"Maybe I was secretly hoping you would stop by." Anna said coyly, working the front of his tented pants and helping him out of them and his boxer shorts.

Robert's tongue moved down over her breastbone and her stomach, all the way down to her mound, finally slipping between her folds to circle her most sensitive point.

"Oh my God… Robert!"

Running his hands up from her ankles up her shapely legs, he grabbed them by the thighs and pulled her legs onto his shoulders, bringing her closer to his mouth. He slipped one finger easily inside of her, then another, moving them in tandem with his tongue and lips.

Anna propped herself up on her elbows, making eye contact with him as he devoured her. He loved the familiar taste of her, and his mouth worked over her eagerly. The look in his bright blue eyes was searing. It was too intense. She closed her eyes, and her head fell back with a moan.

"You're so wet for me, Anna. I can't wait to be inside of you."

Her breath stuttered. Lacing her fingers together behind the back of his head, she pulled him in as close as she could. He was surrounded by her intoxicating scent, his head crushed between her tightening thighs. The heat in her core was spreading quickly.

"Please don't stop." Anna gasped.

Robert continued with renewed vigor, feeling Anna tighten around his fingers. She pulsed around them in a dizzying release, calling out his name. Her body writhed against his mouth. He brought her down gently, slowing his fingers before completely withdrawing them. His lips kissed the insides of her thighs.

Rubbing her hands down his back, she urged him to come back and kiss her again. The taste of him mingled with the taste of her sent a thrill through her body. His erection was trapped against her belly between them.

Curling her fingers around it and sliding her hand up and down, Anna relished his groans.

She needed him. Clutching his rear, Anna moved Robert's hips so that they were aligned with hers. Her legs opened to him, and Robert thrust forward, completing her as he filled her to the hilt. Their moans disturbed the otherwise quiet room, and their eyes locked in a gaze. He paused to allow her to adjust, cradling the side of her face in his hand.

"I've got you, Luv."

The rhythm he set at first was slow, and she rolled her hips up to meet each of his thrusts. She wrapped her legs around his waist and squeezed, urging him to go faster and harder. His mouth found the known tender spot on her neck and sucked at it as he plunged in and out of her.

"God, Anna. You feel so good."

"More." Anna breathes. "Robert, give me more… Please."

His hand slipped between them to rub her; he knew exactly how to touch her to bring her the maximum sensation. No one else had ever had the power over her pleasure that Robert did.

The sounds she made changed as she neared her climax, her cries growing more desperate and strangled. Anna was lost in Robert, in the feeling of him pounding inside of her. Her eyes were wild with need as he pressed his finger harder into her sensitive nerves and brought her closer to the edge.

"I'm so close, Robert… Ohh…"

"Give me everything." Robert growled in her ear, nibbling lightly on it.

There was nothing he wanted more than to see her fall apart. Her fingernails dug into his back, her body trembling with her climax as she drew his name out again in a long moan. Robert could barely move within her clenching muscles, but managed a few more thrusts. He groaned and held her hips tight against his body as it jerked with his release into her.

They stayed wrapped in their embrace, panting against each other until Robert softened and slipped out of her. He lay on his side and pulled her back against him. There was comfort in the feeling of his solid chest behind her, in the repetitive motion of his breathing. They lay there in contented silence for a while before Robert finally spoke.

"How are you feeling?"

"Very satisfied. You were wonderful."

"That's not what I meant…"

Anna sighed, knowing it wasn't, but hoping to dodge the conversation in her afterglow. "I don't know… I'm still in shock. This is all so unexpected and overwhelming, Robert. I don't know what I expected when we went to find Emma, but this was not it. It's amazing, a miracle really, but…"

"I know, sweetheart." Robert interrupted, kissing her shoulder. "I know. And I need to tell you… I'm sorry."

"What?" He couldn't see her face, but he could feel when Anna's head cocked to one side.

"I said I'm sorry."

"I know. That's so foreign coming from you that I had to have you repeat it." Anna teased.

"I'm serious. You carried and gave birth to both of my children, and I wasn't there for you." Robert's hand caressed over Anna's lower abdomen where Robin and Alessandro had grown.

"Robert…"

"You went through all of that alone, twice. But you're never going to be alone again, Anna. I promise you that."

Anna turned in his arms and nuzzled into his chest, wrapping her arms tightly around his torso. He smelled of the same woodsy cologne that he always had. His hand ran through her chestnut hair, twirling the mussed locks around his fingers; he'd always had a fascination with her hair.

"I love you, Robert Scorpio."

"And I love you. Together, Devane. We figure this out together."

"Forever."