A/N - As promised, a second chapter as a reward for the patience that you have all shown.

I must admit though - this story certainly took on a life of it's own. It's different to what I had in my head.

That's the problem with characters, both your own and those that you borrow, they tend to move the way that they want to regardless of what you want.

So read, enjoy and review

:)

Chapter Eighteen – The Smile You Left On My Fingertips

Olivia was still trying to connect the thoughts in her mind as Astrid continued.

"Technically speaking, each child had three parents. She put a little of her make-up into each child that she helped create."

"So when she said that they were hers to take, she meant literally hers? That's weird, even for us."

"So did she design them like we first thought?"

Astrid shook her head slightly.

"I don't think that was her intention, just a side effect. You know how Michael mentioned that he knew Marion, he just didn't recollect how?"

"Yes."

"Well, just after his parents died, Angela took him to Trualific Sciences to fulfil his father's last wish."

"Which was?"

"To destroy the last of their genetic material. Fair enough I guess. But that's when I think Marion first realised what was going on. She met Michael and then spent the next little while tracking down each of the children, finding out where they were and how they were doing."

"But what was it about these six that got her so upset? Why take them?"

"That, I still don't know. But while you were gone, I called the hospital and they gave me the results of Cassie's scan."

"And?"

"The doctor said that her brain injury looked like a result of a fall, bleeding and swelling. Apparently, it should go down and she should be fine. I think Marion was trying to drain the blood, fix the damage from the fall but she wasn't as good as she thought she was."

Olivia nibbled at her cookie as the pieces slowly started to fit together. Something about those kids had upset Marion, forcing her into the action of kidnapping. She thought of them as her own children, maybe even symbols of little Celeste, the daughter that she could do nothing to save. She had done everything that she had done to save the children. From what, Olivia still wasn't sure. They would have to go back to Marion for that answer.

Marion Chessler barely looked up when Olivia entered the room, the confidence that she had in herself rolling off in waves. Olivia understood the confidence now. In Marion's broken, grief filled mind, she did what she had too. She did it for the kids. Olivia placed the file on the desk, thicker now, bursting with Marion's movements and actions from the moment of Celeste's death.

"I'm always afraid to look away from my daughter when she is in the bath."

She saw the flinch, the pain but Marion offered no other comment, so Olivia continued.

"I read all the books when I was pregnant but nothing prepares you for the passion you feel for your child, does it? You want to absorb every ounce of their pain, for them to be happy and healthy. That's all I ever want for my daughter and I'm sure you felt the same about Celeste."

"I'm sorry I frightened her. That was never my intention. But I needed to get Michael."

"To save him, right?"

"Yes."

Olivia opened the file, deciding that now that Marion was talking, they should go from the beginning.

"Why did you put some of your genetic material into the children?"

Marion sighed.

"I didn't want to have another child after Celeste but I still wanted to be carried on. When Wyndell offered me the job, I told him I didn't think I could do it but he insisted. He always watched over me that way."

"Did he know what you were doing?"

"I never asked. And neither did he. But people never saw it anyway."

"Saw what?"

"Just how broken he was. He hid it well. But I knew what he was doing, even if he never knew what I was."

"What was he doing?"

"Wyndell had many faults, one of which was his curiosity. Intelligence fascinated him. He was the one that toyed with the embryos."

"Is that why he killed himself? Because he was going to get caught?"

Marion shook her head.

"No. He was bound to do that at some point. Celeste's death left him as a shell. Every breath he took hurt him. He brushed it off but it was like a ticking clock, waiting for an alarm to go off."

"So you didn't kill him?"

Marion frowned at the accusation.

"I loved him. Why would I do that?"

Olivia shrugged slightly. She wondered how a woman who could kidnap six children didn't like being accused of the murder of her ex-husband.

"Marion, we need to know where those other kids are."

Marion frowned.

"Why? So that you can take them away, back to their lives?"

"Yes. There was nothing wrong with their lives before."

"They weren't children. They were adults long before their time. They didn't have a childhood."

"You did that."

"Not on purpose. That can happen with IVF, the same with children with Down Syndrome or multiple births."

"The way you hurt about Celeste, their families are going through the same thing right now."

"Their families don't love them."

Olivia shook her head.

"It doesn't work like that. Michael's Aunt, who took over his care when his parents died, is so consumed with grief and guilt that she doesn't speak. Cassie's mother only cared that her daughter was safe, not brilliant. And each of the other families feels the same. In saving them, you have hurt them. All of them."

Marion shook her head, for the first time confused.

"No, I watched them. They were pushed and pushed, sent to classes well above their age group, forced to become something that they weren't meant to be."

"But how do you know that?"

"They aren't normal children."

" Michael is a sweet, sensitive little boy. He's intelligent too, scarily so but he's still a child. He still needs a light at night when he sleeps, he still needs his Aunt to care for him and he still needs the adults around him to be adults."

"They are pushed and pushed. Their intelligence has taken everything away."

"Their intelligence hasn't taken anything away from them. They still have dreams and ambitions. Cassie Burton is obsessed with maths but also with animals. She has a menagerie in her backyard. She wants to be a veterinarian."

Olivia slid a picture of Cassie and her siblings across the table where it came to rest in front of Marion who shook her head again, starting to cry. Olivia kept talking, hammering away, wanting Marion to see just how wrong she was.

"Emily Geller wants to be the editor for The New York Times."

Another picture, another smiling face.

"Clifton Jordan wants to invent a cure for cancer because his mother suffered from breast cancer. That's why they came to you, wanting assistance with his conception."

Marion's whole body shook now but Olivia felt little sympathy now. She knew each of these children and each of their families intimately. Marion had potential destroyed huge numbers of people with her inability to see the truth that was in front of her.

"Anna Jackson wants to be a conductor one day, standing at a podium, allowing thousands of people to hear the joy that she does when she hears music. And James Connerway? He just wants to people to see the beauty in the world. That's why he uses the colours that he does, that's why in every picture when he is painting, he is smiling."

Olivia made sure that Marion could see every picture and every smiling face.

"You can't tell me that if Celeste was like any of these kids, that you would not help her reach her potential? Because that is all these parents are doing. What kind of parent doesn't want their child to be everything they possibly can be? To be everything they want to be?"

Marion sniffed, wiping the tears from her face with the palm of her hand.

"I was saving them."

"You were potentially destroying them."

"I was their parent."

Olivia shook her head, her voice hard.

"A parent is a label you earn. You've done nothing to help these kids. Aside from perhaps inflicting some scars which may never heal."

Olivia lapsed into silence, giving her words a moment to penetrate Marion's denial, hoping that it was enough to move through the madness that had become infested there.

"You can still fix this, Marion. Let me find those kids and give them back to their families. Let them go home."