Hey!

Here I'm again bringing you all a special treat. I guess we have a lot to celebrate today!

By the way, you can thank @Sarrabr4 for this!

Hope you enjoy it. Can't wait to read your comments.

Happy reading!

Xoxo,

Nina

The following days were different. Kim had been talking to Hailey regularly about nothing in particular and of course she'd answered Sylvie too. No matter what was the issue between them they always found the way around it.

However, Kim felt like she needed some space, and so far she was feeling alright. Sylvie understood and respected that, especially after the call she got from the brunette in which she apologized for her attitude and explained exactly what she was feeling. After that, they got together, hugged it out and watched a movie while drinking a few beers.

Lucky for her she hadn't heard from Ian in the past days and even though Sylvie told her she had nothing to do with it, Kim thought otherwise. Somebody probably did something about it and she was forever grateful for that.

Every now and then Kim would grab her computer and try to figure out her cloud password with no success, get totally pissed and then leave her house, trying to clear her mind and to re-focus. Today was one of those days.

She went to the farmers market. She needed some things, but apart from that she needed a change of scenery, some fresh air and something else to think about.

"Mommy." Gracie said shyly. "Mommy!" This time her voice was louder and she began to tug on her mother's hand.

"What happened sweetheart?" Anne asked, looking down at her daughter.

"That's Aunt Kim!" The little girl finally said, pointing over to a flower stall. "Can I go say hi? Please?"

Anne thought it over for a second. How do you say no when your kid wants to say hello to her teacher/aunt who she has an incredible bond with and hasn't seen for over a month now.

The woman crouched down to Gracie's height and cupped her daughter's little cheek with one hand.

"Gracie, I understand how much you want to go, but you do remember everything Uncle Adam told you right?" Gracie nodded her answer. "Maybe right now is not the best time."

"Mommy, please. I promise to be good."

"Oh, honey, that doesn't worry me. What worries me is how it might make you feel later."

"It's ok, mommy. I'm ready." Gracie stated confidently.

"Your uncle is going to kill me." Anne said under her breath. She wasn't really worried about Adam's reaction, but she was worried about picking up the pieces of her daughter's broken heart afterwards.

She stood up and held Gracie's hand tightly. "Come on, baby. I'll speak, ok?"

"Yes!" The smile on her face could light up any room. She couldn't be doing the wrong thing if her daughter was this happy about it. Right?

"Hi, good morning. I'm so sorry to bother you." Anne was nervous, she didn't know how this was going to turn out.

"Good morning." Kim answered with a smile.

"Um, my name is Anne and this is my daughter Gracie." She looked down at Gracie, making Kim do exactly the same thing.

The look of happiness on that little girl's face invaded Kim's heart and she found herself genuinely smiling at Grace.

"Hi, Gracie. It's a beautiful day, isn't it?" Kim told her and Grace just nodded smiling.

"Grace wanted to come and say hello." Kim looked back at Anne, who wanted to explain why they were bothering her. "You see, she is in your first grade class and, well the bond that you created with her is out of this world. She really misses you and I'm so grateful you were part of her life. She speaks of you every day." Anne thought that was safe enough to share and Kim felt her heart shrink.

"Wow, thank you so much." She said to Anne and immediately crouched down to look at Gracie eye to eye. The sparkle in her green eyes pierced right through Kim's soul. "And thank you for wanting to come to say hi to me. I'm sorry I can't be at school with you, but I hit my head really hard and I'm still trying to get better."

"I know, Mrs. Quinn told us. And my uncle explained to me that sometimes big bumps on our head make us forget some things."

"That's exactly what happened to me."

"Does it hurt?"

"Not anymore, but sometimes it's a little hard when I don't remember things. Right now, for example, I wish I could remember more about you." Kim said sweetly while lightly touching the tip of Gracie's nose, making the girl giggle.

"It's ok. Can I give you a hug to make you feel better?"

Before answering, Kim looked over to the girl's mother asking for permission and only when Anne nodded to her smiling, Kim spoke. "I'd like that very much." Gracie practically jumped into her aunt's arms and both of them embraced in a tight, heartfelt hug. Kim felt a turmoil of emotions and a huge urge to cry. They stood like that for a few minutes, the brunette had no idea how much she needed this interaction and Anne took the chance to snap a photo of the both of them. Kim was such an important part of her daughter's life, that missing the opportunity of recording this moment would have been a real shame.

Kim finally moved away from Gracie smiling and wiping the few tears she shed with the back of her hand, the one hand where her charm bracelet was carefully clasped. The little girl looked at it and smiled.

"I love your bracelet."

"Thank you, bear."

A sharp pain struck Kim's head, causing her to shut her eyes and cover her face with both hands.

"It's a charm for your bracelet, so you can always remember us even if we are far away like mommy and daddy."

"I think this would make you think of us, because when I saw it the first thing I thought about was Ruzek, and that's my name."

Even with her eyes shut she could see the little girl smiling with pride as the words were coming out of her mouth. That's what the R charm was about.

"Kim? Kim, are you ok?" Anne's voice was far away and when she finally opened her eyes the concerned look on both Anne and Grace scared her a little.

"Yeah, yeah I'm fine." Kim looked at both of them a bit disoriented

"Are you sure? I can take you to Med, just let me call my husband real quick?" Anne was nervous, if something happened to Kim she knew she was going to be in deep shit with Adam.

"No. Seriously, I'm good." She shook her head as a faint smile slowly appeared on her face. "Grace Ruzek, right?" She finally asked, looking back at Gracie with watery eyes and when the girl nodded smiling there was no use in even trying to stop the tears. "Oh, come here bear." She extended her hands out for her again, but this time it felt different. This time she knew who Grace was.

Kim couldn't stop crying and Anne was in the exact same condition. "Ruzek." Kim said again as she slowly moved away from Grace, who refused to let go of her aunt. "Adam. Are you…?"

"Yes, she's Adam's niece." Anne jumped in before Gracie could say too much.

Kim stood up and stared at Anne, her breathing picked up, and an overwhelming feeling invaded her chest as the words she had just remembered kept sounding in her head. "You came back. You were away, right? With your husband?" Blurry images and ideas were coming slowly to her head and she couldn't contain herself. "Is that right?"

"Yes." She answered softly, uselessly trying to push back her tears. "That's right Kim."

"Oh my God." Kim grasped covering her mouth. "Thank you." She didn't know what to say or do, she just walked over to Anne and hugged her lightly, feeling how Gracie's mom returned the hug to her felt like more pieces of the puzzle were falling into the right place. "Thank you, bear." She reached down for Grace and picked her up. "You helped me so much today. You're such a special little girl." Gracie giggled and snuggled into Kim's chest.

"I love you." The soft whisper of Gracie's voice made another image run through her head.

"I love you bear. Listen to Aunt Hailey and do everything she tells you. I'll see you in a little while."

"I love you too."

"You were in the car with me."

"I was, but you told Aunt Hailey to take me." Gracie explained while hugging Kim by her neck.

"You saved her, Kim. You made sure she was going to be ok." Anne added wiping her tears with a tissue.

"Why… why did I have her?" The brunette asked stuttering.

"That's kind of a long story."

Kim was in shock. She had been looking for answers and today she got quite too many. Some of them were adding up, but with others she really had to think how they were connected because nothing seemed to make sense.

Her head was throbbing, her eyes burned, and even though everything that had just happened brought her extreme joy, she needed to stop and breathe.

"I have to go." She blurted out.

"Sure, do you want me to drop you off somewhere?" Anne offered kindly.

"No, I'll walk. I could use the fresh air. Thank you again, for everything. You have no idea how important all of this was for me."

"Can I see you again?" Gracie asked shyly.

"Of course you can if that's ok with mom and dad, I would love to see you again and maybe have a little more time to play." Kim answered and put Grace down before one last hug. "Thanks again."

"Thank you, Kim. We'll be in touch."

Kim just nodded her answer and walked away.

Her brain right now was like a high end computer, her thoughts were running wild and the pain in her temples was asking her to please slow down, but she couldn't, she didn't want to. Stopping now made no sense for her, she finally felt like she was close to remembering everything, to getting those two years of her life back.

She walked to the only place where she thought she could find more answers.

Standing in front of the door she knocked desperately, as if she wanted to knock the door down and alternating the knock with the annoying sound of the doorbell.

"Jesus Kim, I heard you the first time you knocked." Sylvie complained as soon as she opened the door, but when she saw how pale she looked, the little aggravation that she was feeling completely vanished.

"What happened?"

"Please help me."

"Come in, are you ok? Do you want me to call the doctor or take you somewhere?" She reached for her friend's arm and pulled her inside her apartment. "Sit down, let me get you some water."

Kim did as instructed and sat down, doing her best to catch her breath. When Sylvie came back with the water she handed her the glass and waited for Kim to

say something. "I just saw Gracie." Her brown eyes were staring at the wall in front of her as she kept talking with Sylvie's hand on her knee trying to comfort her. "And I remembered. I remembered Gracie, I remembered her parents being away on some sort of trip and I remembered the moment right before the crash." As the words came out of her mouth, so did the tears. The emotions were choking her, making it difficult to speak, let alone breathe. Sylvie sat next to her, rubbing her back in an attempt to calm her down.

"Honey, that's great! Things are slowly coming back." Although the blonde tried to be enthusiastic about it, deep inside she knew how hard it must be to get all this information at once.

Kim nodded and squeezed the hand Sylvie still had on her knee. "How are you feeling?"

"I'm confused, happy, overwhelmed. I'm not sure. It's just a bunch of emotions all crumbled up together."

"I guess that's only normal, Kim. Do you want me to call doctor Walker?"

"No." She shook her head.

"Then, how can I help you?"

"Syl, was my apartment really like that? I didn't have anything else there?" Sylvie looked down, almost ashamed of having taken some things down. "I know that things are supposed to come back to me naturally, but I really need to know, to understand, to find the missing pieces."

"No, you had more things there."

"Are those things still around?" Sylvie nodded. "Where? Can I have them back?"

"Kim…"

"Don't Syl. We've been through this. I know you want to protect me, but it's gonna hurt either way. I can't take this any longer, I really can't. I want to know who I'm looking at, who I'm talking to. I need to face the truth and put the ghosts away. Stop living in an imaginary life, stop feeding off wishes."

"What do you mean by that?"

"Ever since you told me I was dating someone, I keep fantasizing about that relationship and every single time the person standing next to me is Adam." Her face was beginning to swell due to the intense crying. "And it feels very good, but then I talk to people and that idea seems so far away. I just need to know, rip the band aid off once and for all."

Sylvie stood up and went to her room leaving Kim alone for a few minutes. When she came back, she found her place next to her friend and handed her a cardboard box with a floral design print. "Here they are. I didn't read anything. You had this box already with things in it and I just put the pictures and drawings in there. You had a bunch of things the kids at school gave us." They both chuckled through the tears. "Most of them are from Grace, though." She took a deep breath and placed the box in front of them. "Do you want me to stay with you while you go through it?"

Kim shook her head, she didn't even try to dry away the tears because she knew that she was going to keep crying. "No, thank you. I think I need to do this alone."

"Ok. Let me get the car keys, I'll drive you home."