AN - Almost comming to the end of my prewritten chapters (if you can say that about a story composed in 2005). So any ideas in the next few posts as to where this should go or what you'd like to see - I'm open to suggestion.

Living Room at Castaways, New York State

0202Hrs Saturday 19th February 2005

Trixie watched Sally drag her eldest brother, reluctantly, towards their room. Brian looked back several times. A slightly exasperated expression covered his features. It said, I can't quite figure out how I've been bested. To which Trixie wanted to yell, 'get over yourself Dr Belden.' She refrained, however justified she felt.

'Well, I guess that just leaves you and me,' Trixie returned the focus of her attention to Jim, scrutinising him. She didn't like what she saw. Tempted to start interrogating him, Trix quickly changed her mind. 'You look all done in. Why don't you take a shower and try to get some sleep?'

'Trying to get rid of me already, Shamus?' he inquired sardonically, well aware of the intense examination still lacing her eyes. 'And here I am thinking my luck may have changed when you fell in with my beloved sisters plans so easily,' he mocked sinically.

Snorting in an unladylike manner, Trixie replied in the same vane, 'in your dreams James Frayne! Been there already, remember!'

'Yes,' this time Jim didn't colour up at her words, nor did the awkwardness he usually felt when discussing his sexuality so openly appear to taunt him. 'I do remember, Trixie Belden,' he assured her with just a hint of solemness in his tone, 'the question is, do you?'

Off balance by what should have been a throw away line, Trixie worked hard to hide her discomfort. 'Enough has happened tonight for Honey and the other Bob Whites to reconcile with their thoughts and opinions of me,' Trixie stated with an attempt at dry humour which barely succeeded, 'or at least what they remembered of me, without creating further headaches about sleeping arrangements. As I said before, we're adults, Jim. I'm sure we can come up with a solution suitable to both of us.'

'I thought I might take the couch,' he suggested, measuring it against his six foot plus length. 'It looks comfortable enough if you could spare a blanket off your bed.'

'Really?' an eyebrow rose in reaction to his words. 'Always a gentleman to the last,' pausing, Trixie took the time to really examine Jim's features. Apart from the weariness and defeat I see in your eyes from the events of tonight, I can see that you're hiding something which is really upsetting you, James Frayne. A frown furrowed her brow at obvious clue she'd missed earlier in the evening. In fact this something has been upsetting you for some time and against your better judgement, you really want to get it off your chest because it has something to do with why you used Sabina to cover your feeling for me.

'Why don't you tell me what's on your mind, Jim,' suggested Trixie, deciding direct force might work as her ally with her ever honest and dependable friend.

Pointing to the backpack still between them, he indicate his preference, 'Ladies first.' The lurking hurt and distrust in Jim's eyes affected Trixie in a way she hadn't expected.

'Why London,' Trix asked, not pretending to wilfully misunderstand his query before she answered her question, 'because it's were this started and where it ends. It's also were the proof is.'

'Why take me?' Jim rebutted when she seem unlikely to say any more.

'Because you're the key, Jim,' Trixie told him seriously, leaning slightly forward to give emphasis to her words. 'You have information about Sabina's movements and whereabouts that link her to every infection here in the US and one in the UK. I only realised tonight and it makes you a walking target'

'So why not leave me here in New York? I can arrange for dad's security company to look out for my welfare. Surely I'd be safer playing in my own backyard, rather than some foreign county,' he suggested, hoping rather than believing his statement.

'Just like your father's company has been safe from The Terror Bug?' Trixie quipped, 'or I'd be safe from a bullet while being protected by both the CIA and FBI?'

'I'm aware now,' Jim fired back, still angered by the near miss on Trixie's life he and the other Bob Whites only learnt about tonight. Jonesy's actions only intensified the depth of his feelings. Feelings he'd long held at bay. Working hard, it took all of Jim's mental resources to turn his mind back to the conversation. 'I can take care of myself.'

'Can you?' Trixie looked him directly in the eye, wondering if he really understood the implications of all that had gone on here tonight when she had only just put it all together in her mind a few minutes ago. 'Are you aware of the demise of you predecessors?'

Giving Jim time to consider her questions, Trixie could see the confusion enter his eyes. Suspicion soon followed. 'What predecessors?' he asked calmly enough but his eyes demanded she give him proof.

'January 2001, the body of Pieter Richenhimer is found floating in the Rhine after a terrible speed boat accident,' Trixie explained in a dead pan voice. 'His ex-girlfriend, who incidentally looks incredibly like a dark haired, brown eyed version of Sabina, decided to move to another country because of work commitments the week preceding the accident. The son of Dieter Richenhimer, owner of Guildenberg Scientific Engineering Inc, one of Germany's leading weapons research firms, you can guess the reason for the association. It formed the first European company found to be infected with The Terror Bug.' Pausing for effect, Trixie knew she had Jim's undivided attention now. 'April 2002, Pedro D'Angelo passed away at the ripe old age of 34 after a night of wild partying on the French Riviera post the break up with his blonde bombshell of a girlfriend. He was the grandson of Giovanni D'Angelo.'

'As in the chairman of the board of Intelligent Designs,' Jim enquired with awe, 'the Italian manufacturing giant?'

Astounded at Trixie's brief nod, Jim paled as he felt impelled to ask the question. 'You believe the woman was Sabina?'

'I do now,' Trixie confirmed. 'This one will chill you. Covent Gardens, March 2004, the body of Edward Whitmore III, son of the Earl of Heyburn, is found dead of an overdose, one week after his current lady friend leaves him to move to America "on business". He'd been groomed to take over a major IT company, called Lennard International by his uncle.'

'You really think I'm her next victim?' Jim asked astounded.

'You fit the profile. Your smart, from wealthy family, but most importantly you are being groomed to take over Bathurst International when Mr Wheeler retires,' Trixie explained. 'What I don't understand is how she captured and held your interest so long. Your ability to read people and situations is usually excellent because of your background. So tell me Jim, what exactly did she have over you?' Trixie's piercing blue eyes continued to rake over him, looking for the slightest change in his body language. Jim's nervousness plainly evident, Trixie demanded, 'Mr Frayne, you're still keeping secrets from me.'

'Not just from you, Trix,' Jim concurred sadly, 'from everyone, well nearly everyone.'

'Want to tell me about it,' she prompted, settling herself comfortably back into the couch, where she intended to wait him out if she had too.

'No,' sighing, Jim looked down into Trixie's face. Seeing her determination he decided he had better start, 'but I have the feeling I won't be getting any sleep until I tell you.'

'You got that right,' she answered, attempting to cover a yawn with a sardonic smile.

'So, Shamus, here is my deep dark secret which I know will come out in the media at some point in the not to distant future.' A deep sigh escaped Jim's lips as he prepared to tell his tail. 'A little over a year ago, just before Christmas of '03, Dad calls me into his office for a little father/son chat. On his desk is a black and white photo of my real parents, taken on the farm in Rochester. Mom must have been seven or eight months pregnant with me at the time.'

'You can't imagine how angry I became with Matthew Wheeler for holding onto the only photograph of my birth parents without my knowledge. I once told Dad, a few weeks after I came to live with the Wheelers, all I really wanted from my past was a pictorial memory of my parents and my life with them. Time has a funny way of making your memories fade.' Jim shook his head as if trying to shake some recollections of his parents loose at this every moment. 'I'd just turned ten when my father died. The images I have of him, well, they fade a little more each year and I have to try harder to remember his face. I have a few more recollections of my mother, but not many.'

'Then Dad, my adoptive father, turns the picture over.' Pausing for a moment, Jim remembered how his heart pounded when he first sighted the photo. It pulsated to a similar rhythm now. Surprised Trixie couldn't hear the rapid tattoo coming from his chest he found the words to continue. 'On the back in my biological Mother's hand writing where the words, "David and I can't thank you enough for you gift, Love Katie May 78." Mom's the only person who called Dad "David" to everyone else he was just "Win".'

'So I look up at Matthew Wheeler with confusion and ask "what gift",' pausing, Jim's confusion still evident. 'It took him a couple of minutes just to make eye contact with me before saying "you".'

'Jim,' Trixie gently placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, realising the only way Sabina managed to capture James Winthrop Frayne the Second's attention would be at a low ebb in his life. I know you've been a little distant this past year, but I though Sabina's influence to be the cause. I'm beginning to think I've been completely wrong.

'Trix, I found out…' swallowing hard, Jim hung his head between his knees. This light headedness will pass, as it always does when I think about it, he told himself. Besides, Dan, Mart and Trix have shared secrets this evening, maybe its time to share mine. 'I found out Matthew Wheeler…'

'Jim,' Trixie consoled in a soft tone, unsure if she should offer more comfort. She finally decided on a soothing back rub, 'take your time. We have all night.'

'David Winthrop Frayne, my father, or at least the man I have always thought of as my father, became sterile before my conception,' Jim enunciated each word carefully, as though hearing it for the first time. 'When he came home from Vietnam, he discovered he had been exposed to the cancerogenic properties of Agent Orange. Don't you see Trix, Dad not only died from the effects of cancer; he also had testicular cancer in 1974. His treatment with radio and chemotherapy caused his sterility.'

'So, your Mother…' she stammered, horrified at the implications.

'Took matters into her hands,' Jim confirmed. 'I don't know the full story. Dad, Matthew Wheeler that is, refused to go into details. He told me about the weekend my mother invited him to Rochester. He told me about my mother's desperation to have a child with red hair and green eyes just like her husband. He told me she asked him to help her achieve her dream. Dad, my biological father, Matthew Wheeler, I'm still not sure what to call him became horrified at first. I don't know how the Frayne's convinced him, but I was born nine months later.'

'I didn't believe it at first, even though Dad had no reason to lie. I checked anyway,' Jim's head came up and his eyes locked with Trixie's. 'The blood results were easy to obtain, Mom was O, Matthew Wheeler and I A and my father AB.'

'Not conclusive but not very encouraging either,' Trix agreed with a quick nod of understanding. 'So you went on to DNA testing.'

'Eventually,' Jim paused, a world of misery clearly evident in his expression. 'The relationship between Dad and I became very strained for a few months. In the end Dad suggested the DNA test. I guess, like you Shamus, I just had to know and have proof. I got the results a year ago. Without doubt, Matthew Wheeler is my biological father.'

'You didn't take it well, did you Jim,' Trixie could feel the anger and disappointment still emanating of him as her hand continued to slightly stoke his back in a rhythmic pattern.

'No,' he confessed, 'my whole life had been turned upside down once again. I was so angry at everyone I ever loved and trusted. It seemed they had all let me down. Matthew Wheeler, the only person within reach I could take my frustration out on, so I confronted him with everything I felt at the time. My father wasn't my father any more. I could now justify the disintegration of my memories of him. My mother…I didn't know what to think of her, except how desperately she must have wanted me to… And then Dad, knowing I was alive out there somewhere and being abused at the hands of my stepfather, it all just seemed…so hopeless.'

'You found a cheap, nasty bar on the wrong side of town,' Trixie picked up the story she could see in her minds eye. 'You drank until it didn't hurt anymore. When you woke up in the morning, Sabina lay beside you.'

'Probably the most stupid mistake I've ever made,' Jim confirmed. 'I don't know how she found me, or why she wanted to be with me. I felt too depressed to question her presence at the time.'

'You told her about the genetic link between you and Matthew Wheeler,' Trix whispered, finally making sense of Sabina's tight grip on Jim.

'There's more,' the hesitancy in Jim's tone made Trixie's skin crawl. 'I'm apparently not that discreet when I get drunk. I, that is you and I had secrets until that night, Trix.'

'You…' swallowing hard, Trixie knew she had to ask, yet didn't want too. 'You told her about us?'

'And more,' he hesitated once again, deliberately hiding his expression from her this time.

Oh, this can't be good, her imagination didn't have to search far to acknowledge the incident Jim was eluding too. Not good at all if Jim knows what happened six weeks after I started at George Washington when I never found the courage to tell him. If Sabina knows too…my cover been blown and she's played me for at least the last year.

Frightened for the first time, Trixie became as white as fresh laid snow. 'What more?' Pleading now, she grabbed the front of Jim's jacket and found her hands shaking like a leaf. 'You have to tell me exactly what Sabina knows about us and our relationship.'

Like twin laser beams, Jim's eyes came to rest on Trixie's face. They scorched a path wherever they touched. Menacingly, he covered her smaller hands with his fists and removed her presence from his jacket but didn't entirely let them go. The pressure he applied enough to make Trixie wince without actually hurting her. 'I was angry at all the people who I trusted, who I though loved me. All of you let me down in some way, you perhaps the worst of all.'

'When did you find out?' Trixie stammered, still attempting assimilate the fact that Jim knew, 'How?'

'When,' he spat, 'or how, does it really matter. The question is can I ever forgive you for not telling me? It took three years, Trixie, three years of my life in counselling to come to terms with.'

'At least you had the chance' she muttered under her breath, unable, now to acknowledged Jim's feelings, as the concrete walls of the emotional dam she'd built so long ago came crashing down in a single instant.

'And you haven't,' he shouted at her, losing his control for the first time in years. None of his hard fought coping mechanisms seemed to click into place. Tired, upset, hurt and realising how close to losing the last chance to cement any kind of relationship between them, Jim tried to calm his mind. This is not the way to win back any trust between us, Jim realised, unable to stop the anger gushing from an untapped well.

'No,' Trixie flung back, before taking several deep breaths and forcing herself to remain calm in an atmosphere filled with emotion. It didn't work. It couldn't, not on a background of pent up fury and hurt creating a maelstrom in her mind. 'I've had to live with more regret in the last six and a half years of my life than any person should be force to endure in an entire life time. I told you I'm trapped in a career I loath and will probably kill me sooner rather than later. I will never have the chance to love freely, chose a life partner or have a family. This path I was railroaded into with my innocents forces me to do thing I don't want to do, gets the people I love killed for no good reason. But the greatest regret I will ever have to live with is the death of our bab…' A sob, torn from the depths of her soul, transmuted into the first expression of grief she'd allowed herself from the events of so long ago.

Roughly, Jim pulled Trixie into his arms. 'You never grieved?' he asked astounded, realising for the first time how much this event changed his school girl shamus into the woman he now held.

Which bastard from your past, Jim wondered, coheres a naive eighteen year old girl to dismiss her friends and family at a time in her life when she needed us more than ever and then tries to suppress the natural grief process in order to control her thoughts and actions? He didn't want to empathise with Trixie. Still to angry at her, yet a traitorous part of him allowed a tear to roll down a cheek and the guilt he still felt to unfurl from a hidden well in the depths of his soul. Shamus, I wished I had followed my natural instincts, when I saw you lying in that hospital bed, and carried you away, somewhere safe. I became so angry at you for not telling me that I listened to Tim What's-his-name and believe his lies. It never occurred to me that I too, was being used as a pawn in the power struggle to control your future.

'I wasn't allowed too,' she answered several minutes later, when the tempest finally ended. 'I didn't know. Even on the way to the hospital, I assumed the pain came from an injury in my self-defence class, that I had missed the jab to my stomach. Only after the operation, when one of the doctors told me they had to remove a fallopian tube because of the ectopic pregnancy, I realised. By then, it seemed too late to tell anyone.'

'Come on Shamus,' Jim whispered in her ear, 'it's time we went to bed.' Before Trixie could protest, Jim laid a finger over her lips, scooped her up and carried her into the "Green Suite".

Sometimes, Jim reflected, there just aren't the words to express what we really feel. Sometimes, it's our actions which speak for us. I guess that's what got us into this mess in the first place. Trixie, I finally understand that you couldn't tell me how you felt before you left for college so you attempted to show me. Only I was too caught up in my own insecurities to appreciate what you were trying to say.

Kitchen at Castaways,

New York State

1020Hrs Saturday 19th February 2005

A yawn escaped Linnie as she poured yet another batch of pancake batter into a large skillet on top of the stove. Both she and Mart woke an hour earlier as the bright sunlight cascaded through their window. For a while they talked softly about their sudden engagement and how right it felt for the both of them. They'd taken a short walk around the house to survey their surroundings and continue making plans for an early April wedding in the Ozarks. Then, Mart's stomach complained although he hadn't said a word about being hungry. Linnie took the hint and headed for the kitchen, while her Fiancée went to rouse the others for breakfast.

'Boy, do I know how you feel,' Sally remarked, sitting on a kitchen stool, her head in her hands. When she looked up, her gaze contained bleary eyes. 'I don't feel as though I slept at all last night.'

'Peter and I stayed up a couple of hours,' Honey remarked from the coffee maker, her movements slow and deliberate so she wouldn't spill the hot liquid before getting it into the mugs lined up on the counter. She too, looked tired.

'You too, hey,' Jo chipped in, finally making an appearance at the kitchen doorway. 'Dan and I must have talked for at least that long. I have to admit the conversation kept circling around Trixie, her choice of career, Jim and the predicament those two seem to have put themselves, and the rest of us in.'

'The question is,' Di chimed in as she counted out plates and cutlery, 'What are we going to do about it?'

'Nothing,' Honey replied, with a wide grin on her lips. 'I have a feeling the situation will resolve it's self if we just leave it alone and don't make a big deal out of it.'

'I don't know,' Sally hesitated, 'I heard them talking in the great room for a while last night.'

Snorting, Di added, 'Nick and I could hear them "talking" from the second story although we couldn't actually make out enough to understand what they said to each other.'

'I'll take your word for it, Maddy,' Linnie commented with a sly grin, 'after all it worked for me. Even sharing a room with Mart turned out to be…well…more fun than I expected.' When several sets of eyes turned on her, she blushed heavily and said, 'A lady never kisses and tells. SO DON'T ASK.'

Sally looked at the girls, all the engaged girls surrounding her in the kitchen. Sourly, she asked no one specifically, 'Will it ever be my turn? After the tongue lashing I gave Brian in the early hours of this morning, I'm wondering if he's still speaking to me. He kept to his side of the bed so that neither of us got any sleep.'

'A tongue lashing my elder brother undoubtedly deserved, Sally. Besides you already have a ring though his nose,' Trixie commented dryly, entering the kitchen for the third time that morning. This time her late rising friends finally occupied it. On the other occasions, she had been securing the permitter, happy in the knowledge she hadn't found anything to arouse her suspensions. 'Trust me, it won't be long before you have one on your finger too. I know that block headed brother of mine, he can be as stubborn as a mule at times but he always comes through in the end.'

'Takes one to know one, Trix,' Honey teased. Suddenly turning to ask in a I'm-trying-to-pretend-the-answer-doesn't-mater-to-me tone, Honey curiously tried to find out exactly where her brother had spent the night. She'd crept down the stairs in the early morning hours, expecting to find Jim asleep on one of the couches. 'How did you sleep last night?'

'On my side,' Trixie's expression gave nothing away, 'the same way I do at home.' Allowing a teasing note to enter her voice, Trixie decided to taunt her long time friend. 'What about you, Honey? How did you sleep?'

'Cuddled up to my Fiancée,' her hazel eyes attempted to convey a message her words only eluded too.

Feeling the tension in the air, the other girls simply stared, intrigued by the showdown occurring between friends. Trixie took her time walking over to Honey, whose hazel eye's continued to challenge her every movement. At the last moment, Trixie reached out and drew her best friend into a crushing embrace. It took Honey several seconds to return the demanding gesture, but when she did, she used all the strength and determination she had in her.

'Thank you for caring, Honey,' Trix said simply, once again almost able to read her best friend's mind. 'I promise never to let our relationship degrade to this state again, even if I can't tell you everything that is going on in my life.'

'What about my brother,' she whispered, 'how is he taking all of this?'

At that moment, Trixie realised Honey had been privy to at least some of Jim's deepest secrets. 'Why don't you let me finish this up and go ask him yourself,' Trixie said as she pushed Honey towards the door. 'Last time I looked, Jim seemed to be enjoying his shower.'