Robert had forgotten how young Anna had been when he first met her. She'd seemed older than he, more mature anyway. But she had been just nineteen, and already two years with the WSB. It seemed unconscionable that she'd been recruited at the tender age of seventeen. Robert was still flipping through the first sheets in the file, the records of her first days with the Bureau, her training, her early assignments, her early successes and failures. Robert didn't dwell on these. He felt almost as if he were trespassing in her past, in the time before he knew her.

He flipped over a thick bundle of papers to progress forward in time. He saw familiar writing – O'Reilly's neat, slightly backward hand. Her evaluation of Anna, unlike her evaluation of Robert, was positively glowing. Apparently Anna lacked Robert's complete and unassailable sense of right and wrong, his clear distinction between black and white, his moral highhandedness; O'Reilly had concluded Anna would, therefore, make an excellent, highly adaptable operative. And an excellent, highly adaptable double agent, Robert thought archly, a bit hurt by what seemed almost a betrayal by his former partner and beloved mentor. Water under the bridge, he told himself, and turned over another bundle of sheets.

Another evaluation: Shaun Donely's. Here he noted Anna Devane's apparent lack of comraderie, her strange social isolation. She was polite and businesslike with her partners but made no friends. Shaun wasn't sure if this disconnection was something to worry about or a huge professional advantage, something that the Bureau could exploit. She might not risk her own neck to save someone else's, but, a lone wolf, she wouldn't and couldn't be manipulated or blackmailed. Or so Shaun thought. Then she'd met Robert and been controlled by the DVX with the threat of his execution. Robert couldn't imagine the Anna described in the early pages of her file. The Anna he knew and had known most of his life was fiercely loving and fiercely loyal. Higher principles be damned – she would die and kill for those she cared about, for those who were vulnerable, for those who needed her help. God knew she had given up everything for him and for their daughter. She had repeatedly and without hesitation sacrificed much.

More sheets in: their first case together. Robert didn't even skim these pages, didn't want to know what Shaun had thought of his work. Anna had basically rescued the hostage single handedly; Robert had been too preoccupied trying not to fall head-over-heels in love, trying not to notice how incredibly intelligent and beautiful she was, how much he wanted their feigned intimacy (they had posed as newlyweds, for God's sake) to be real.

Frustrated, he flipped a thick bundle of sheets over and saw the date "1993" on the top of the paper. The note underneath read simply "Still no intel on location. Case file remains open. Black box order remains in effect. Target is to be killed on sight."

Why had they wanted her dead so badly, Robert wondered, a full year after Faison had allegedly died and when Robert was already safely back in their fold?

There had to be an answer somewhere earlier in the file. Robert flipped back, almost having forgotten Beaty's promise of a lost child.

Anna, still in the armchair, had fallen into an unsettled sleep. In her dream she was on the water. She could feel the floor beneath her swaying and rolling gently. She felt as though perhaps she had been drugged, couldn't open her eyes. She heard voices in the distance, maybe in the next room, maybe just above her – she couldn't tell. She heard Cesar's voice clearly. "That wasn't part of the deal," he was saying loudly, over and over. "I don't accept those terms. That wasn't our deal."

Another voice, an unfamiliar voice. A man's. "Take it or leave it, Faison," it said. "We can kill her right now. Or you can accept our offer. We can't afford the risk if she gets away from you. She's an ex-agent. She'll figure out our arrangement. And so might the DVX, especially if they get hold of her. As long as she's with you, she'll be protected. If she escapes, and it becomes obvious she didn't join you of her own free will, she's dead."

Silence. Then Cesar again: "That wasn't our deal. If she escapes and you kill her, I'm out, and you're a dead man."

Robert had backtracked in the file to 1991 – Anna's investigation of the Cartel. He found transcripts of Anna's communications with the Bureau consisting largely of intel on Faison and Taub. Interspersed with these documents he found other records of other conversations. Robert paused when he saw the first of what he noted were many. They recorded repeated conversations between a WSB agent named Zarniki – why did that sound familiar, Robert wondered? – and Cesar Faison, this when Anna was trying to collect enough evidence for the WSB to prosecute him and lock him away.

Robert skimmed quickly. He was horrified by what he read.

Zarniki telling Faison that Barrett and Taub had been compromised, Zarniki telling Faison what Anna had learned. Zarniki making repeated references to an offer, something apparently unrecorded, that Faison could still accept. Faison hesitating, worrying about the repercussions, worrying that someone –who? –would find out about the deal. Worried for his life.

Robert flipped forward in the file.

The dream shifted. Now her eyes were open. She was lying on a leather settee, her feet elevated on a pillow. Cesar was seated next to her, holding her hand. She wanted to pull it away but he was looking at her strangely. She willed herself not to recoil.

"My darling Anna," he was saying. "You fainted. Again. You've been so light-headed lately."

Anna felt herself speaking, slurring. "I'm fine, Cesar. You needn't be concerned."

Cesar stroked the back of her hand. Anna felt the skin on the back of her neck crawl in response. "I realize that now. And I realize how stupidly blind I've been. You're not seasick; you're not unwell. I finally understand. You know, I could file a grievance. After all, this wasn't part of the original transaction."

Anna felt her stomach flip. "I shouldn't have been part of any transaction, Cesar. I made no deal with you or with the Bureau."

He closed his eyes and smiled. "My love, there was no other way for us to be together. You've been so difficult to persuade. I could complain. I could speak to our superiors. I could require that they deal with this – complication – before I fulfill my part of the bargain. All it would take is a series of pills, a small procedure. It wouldn't hurt. And I could insist."

Anna tried to gauge her strength, to determine whether she had enough physical power to best Faison. She doubted she could take him. She felt too ill, too weak.

"But I won't," he continued after a dramatic pause. "Because I know how much it would distress you."

He bent down until his face was level with hers. His smile disappeared. "I want you to know I'll love it as if it were my own. I'll love it because it's yours and despite the fact that it's his. The fact that you're its mother will be sufficient for me. I promise the child won't suffer for the sins of its father. And when Robin finally joins us, we'll be a family together."

Robert found more transcripts, more discussions in veiled terms of offers and deals. He deduced quite quickly what the WSB had wanted from Faison. They'd wanted him to re-establish ties with the DVX and become a double agent. In return they'd offered him freedom. And something else, something unspecified but apparently understood by both parties. Faison was obviously tempted, but afraid.

And then, at the end of a transcribed conversation held after Faison's arrest, during an interview in his cell, Faison had finally agreed to the terms he'd been offered over and over.

"Welcome to the organization, Mr. Faison," Zarniki was recorded saying.

"I don't care about your organization," Faison had replied. "All I want is what you've promised me. When will I be freed?"

"Very soon," Zarniki had promised. "Just let me make a few final arrangements."

Robert thought back to the phone call he'd received from the WSB in 1991 informing him that Faison was no longer in custody. Taub and Faison had tried to escape, Robert was told; Taub had been killed in the attempt while Faison had succeeded. Robert briefly wondered if Taub had, in fact, never really died but decided quickly no, he'd been killed to cover deal the WSB had struck with Faison. Robert had been fooled. He'd never suspected a double-cross.

"And when will I get my payment?" Faison had asked.

"In a few weeks," was Zarniki's reply. "We'll contact you when we need you to make contact and set the groundwork. We'll explain exactly what you're to say and do. We'll use you as bait. Then we'll make all the arrangements. Just leave it to us. We should have her ready for delivery within the month."

Anna was wide awake in the chair. That hadn't been a dream. That had been a memory. She was remembering more.

Robert, come home to me, she thought. I need you.

They would have "her" ready for delivery within the month. I could only mean one thing.

The information in Robert's own file – the Bureau's suspicion that Anna was a double agent, that she'd been Faison's lover and accomplice, that she'd left with him willingly – was in fact a cover, a fiction fed to Robert and all other agents not directly involved in Zarniki's operation. The extent of the WSB's betrayal of him and of Anna suddenly became clear. While she'd been working so tirelessly with and for them to put Cesar Faison away, the WSB had been working against her, all-the-while intending to free him, brokering a deal in which she was payment and reward. They had promised and given Anna to Cesar Faison in exchange for future intelligence and espionage. Even worse, they'd considered her completely expendable. All of this had happened on Robert's watch. And he had dutifully gone back to work for the Bureau after they'd betrayed him and his wife. He felt sick.

Robert decided that when this was over he would find out what had happened to Agent Zarniki. If he was still alive, Robert thought, he would kill him. As William Beaty had pointed out, Robert had killed before, and for lesser crimes. And when Zarniki was dead, Robert would go after his own handler, Agent Carlton. After twenty-three years they would finally pay for what they'd done.

More pages in, he learned that Zarniki's first name was "Clement." Robert would remember that. Zarniki had scripted Faison's video to Anna, their conversations, his veiled threats against Robert and Robin, encouraging Anna's secrecy, encouraging her mistaken belief that Cesar could be controlled. Faison hadn't even been in the country when Anna was taken, by Zarniki and five unnamed accomplices. Robert was satisfied to read that every man was needed to take her down; she'd fought tooth and nail and had wounded two of the men enough that they'd needed medical attention. She'd had to be drugged for transport to Faison's boat.

For a while, the documents in Anna's file merely noted their changing locations: Halifax, down the eastern seaboard, to various ports in the Caribbean. Then, alarmed notices of Robert's disappearance from Port Charles, information about his movements, and warnings issued at regular intervals to Faison. A directive from the head of the WSB that Cesar Faison's deal with the Bureau must not be compromised. A black box order was issued against Robert (he'd seen the same notice in his own file).

Then a surprisingly brief description of the explosion: no suggestion who or what was responsible. After, a short, succinct summary of the state of affairs and a clear, concise order. "Operation Nero compromised. Full clean-up required."

The WSB hadn't anticipated the explosion. Faison had surprised them with his homicide / suicide attempt, though they'd appreciated his character, his instability enough to name his file after the most unstable "Caesar" of all.

Of course only two of the three people on the speedboat had been recovered. The file noted that Cesar Faison's body had not been found despite a careful search of the area.

She was awake when the next memory flared into consciousness. Cesar had tried to kiss her. She'd turned her head, looked off into the corner of the room, waited for him to respond to her rejection, to grab her, to hit her, to scream at her. But he'd done none of those things. She'd waited, her breathing shallow. After a short time he'd simply walked away.

His lack of reaction terrified her.

Robert was still crouched on the linoleum floor of his basement prison. The door, he was sure, was unlocked, but he continued working through Anna's file. He next found her medical records, a list of the damage inflicted by the explosion. There was a photograph. Her eyes were black and swollen shut; her lip was cut. On one side her hair had burned. Robert carefully traced the line of her jaw with his finger. His hand was shaking. Her cheek line wasn't symmetrical.

The medical report was a horrifying miscellany of injuries. A broken jaw, a broken nose. Second degree burns to her hands and to her lower legs. A bruised spleen. A severe concussion. When she was first found she'd been conscious but quickly slipped into a light coma, in which she remained for days. When she'd finally opened her eyes again, she hadn't spoken, hadn't responded to questions, hadn't responded to speech. The doctors realized something was badly wrong.

So why hadn't they just killed her? Why was she kept alive? Had they let her live because they'd thought she was brain-damaged and so no longer a threat? Somehow it didn't seem enough, didn't ring true.

Robert flipped through the next few pages of the file, which consisted mainly of lists of medical test results, blood counts and blood workups he couldn't understand. But on the final page, the very last item he read was clear even to him, its sense and import unambiguous.

Anna had been pregnant.

Robert dropped the paper as though he'd been burned.

"Why can't you love me, Anna?" Cesar looked at her over the table. They were eating dinner.

Anna had been forcing herself to eat for the sake of the child. She put down her knife and fork, and looked back at Cesar. Her expression was blank. "Because I love him. I always have. I always will. Why can't you understand that, Cesar?"

Faison said nothing in reply, just looked at her without obvious emotion, perhaps without comprehension.

After a moment, she picked up her cutlery and resumed eating, taking tiny bites, swallowing with effort, chasing every mouthful with sips of water, willing it to stay down as the boat rolled endlessly on.

Robert's mind was racing, his hands sweating. She'd been pregnant. Robert flipped forward in the file. The black box order had been postponed until the baby was delivered. The cryptic reference in his own file now made perfect sense.

They'd postponed killing Anna until the child was born. But why? The WSB had no more conscience than Elizabeth Beaty; as an institution, it was equally socio-pathic, equally psychopathic. Zarniki wouldn't have balked at executing a pregnant woman. The Bureau must have wanted the baby for some sick reason. They obviously considered Anna completely dispensable. They'd treated her before as a prize, as a payment to entice Faison; they'd then used her as an incubator, had regarded her as little more. They'd kept her alive - unconscious, neglected, her brain injury untreated - for months. But what use could the baby have been to them?

The vomiting finally stopped. The muscles in Anna's stomach were still in spasm, and her breath was still hitching, but gradually, gradually her body calmed. She felt the cool porcelain of the toilet under her hands as she leaned back. The room stopped spinning. I can't do this, Robert, she thought. I can't do this alone. I'm too weak to get away. I need your help. Please help me.

But whatever you do, don't trust the Bureau. Don't ask for its help.

Robert suspected he'd found the answer when read the OB/GYN's medical evaluation. Because the hospital was poorly equipped, Anna's doctor hadn't been able to date the pregnancy accurately. Her blood work had been inconclusive, and the hospital's ultrasound equipment hadn't worked for months. The doctor's estimate for conception was broad and spanned dates before and after Anna's kidnapping.

Robert flipped back to the photograph of Anna wounded, beaten, broken. And pregnant. Robert now understood what Elizabeth had meant when she'd told him Anna had suffered. Anna hadn't left him. She'd fought to stay with him and their daughter. She'd been victimized by the Bureau while Robert, ignorant of the threat it posed, handed Taub and Faison over to the WSB, and then, to compound his guilt, suspected Anna, the betrayed, of betrayal. God only knew what had happened to her while she was on the boat. God only knew what Faison had done to her while he'd held her captive - or what she'd been forced to do to stay alive.

Robert thought back to the moment months earlier when, after years of cowardice and fear, he'd finally summoned the courage to ask Anna the question that had haunted him since she'd disappeared. She'd told him she hadn't been pregnant when she was kidnapped.

But she was pregnant in the hospital room in Venezuela, where the Bureau allowed her to languish.

Obviously Beaty had read the file too superficially. There was only one logical explanation for the Bureau's strange behaviour: it had suspected Anna's child might have been fathered by Cesar Faison. They hadn't found his body. They knew he might not have died, might in fact be alive. And they still wanted his cooperation. Initially they'd rescued Anna thinking she was the key to manipulating Faison. When they'd realized she was pregnant, they must have been delighted, must have known they could use threats to his child even more effectively than threats to or promises of Anna, his grand, obsessive love.

Cesar's child – and Anna's.

She was again staring out the window of her apartment. I can't do this alone, Robert, she was thinking again. I need your help. Please come back. Please help me.

She remembered the Christmas before everything had ended. She remembered trimming the tree, making the dinner, putting Christmas ornaments in her earrings, laughing, making love with her husband. She remembered being happy – finally being happy, finally feeling whole. And then suddenly everything had ended. Everything was taken from her and she'd been alone.

Five months later the child had been born. Despite the injuries to Anna's body, she'd carried it to term. A baby boy.

Robert stared at the tiny footprints inked on the page. Anna's son.

Robert wondered if he could love the child because he was hers. He feared he might hate him because he was Faison's.

But Robert's feelings didn't matter. Anna had to be told. And the child – no longer a child – had to be found.

Robert put the papers back in the file, stood, and finally tried the door. It was unlocked.