I watch as my grandmother just walks around my childhood kitchen—inexplicably remembering where everything is—and proceeds making us cups of tea. I keep my mouth shut as she does so; the excitement I had in seeing her wearing off almost instantly, to be replaced by rage. She'd literally abandoned my grandfather and my aunts and uncles, and for what? My grandfather was about to be a father again, in a matter of weeks, and Grandma Maggie was acting so blase about the entire thing. I was literally sitting at the ends of my seat, the resentment building, until the tea kettle went off.

"Good," Grandma Maggie puts in with a bright smile as she picks up the kettle and pours it, a plume of steam rising upwards as our cups are filled. She fills a small holder with cream and makes a grab for a sugar bowl, and positions the small plate with cookies center stage upon the tray. She lifts it up and brings it to the table, where I'm sitting, and sets it down. "Do you still take it with milk and three spoonful's?" she asks me with a smile.

"Yes," I reply tightly.

Grandma Maggie smiles a little, almost as if she is shocked at my tone, but deciding not to waver, instead moving over my cup and saucer and nodding to the spoon placed just so upon it. "Go ahead," she tells me.

"Don't tell me what to do—I'm thirty-years-old," I snap back, for the second time that day. "You have a lot of explaining to do," I say to her.

Grandma Maggie purses her lips, looking me over. "You're shivering," she observes, nodding to my blazer. "Lose the blazer—it's not doing you any good by wearing it."

I roll my eyes, taking it off, and exposing my badge and gun, to which I catch her raising her eyebrows. "What?" I demand impatiently, removing the tea bag from my cup and making a grab for the creamer. "Do you have something to contribute here, Grandma Maggie?"

"I never expected you to..." She shakes her head. "Your mother and I always assumed you'd go to med or law school..."

"I went to law school—I passed the bar and everything," I reply impatiently. "I didn't decide to be a cop until I got out of rehab," I say, contempt riddling my tone as I grab the sugar bowl.

"You were in rehab?" Grandma Maggie demands, shocked.

I shrug. "What do you care, anyway?" I fire back, setting the sugar bowl back on the tray. "You died... Or, well, you were dead..."

Grandma Maggie nods. "I was, yes."

My eyes snap to hers. "Tell me what happened..."

"No," she replies, picking up the creamer. "First tell me why you were in rehab—it sounds like a much more interesting story."

I scoff then, hating that my formally MIA grandmother was officially avoiding my interrogation session. "I'm a fucking alcoholic—is that what you want to hear?" I say, and find myself shaking my head, stirring my tea in what I assume to be a rather meticulous manner.

"How did you figure that one out?"

"After my oldest daughter was born, things went downhill," I reply. "My ex-husband was working all the time and, well..." I sigh, sick and tired of telling this story for the third time that week. "Hospitals require a lot from their doctors, I guess—I wouldn't know, I'm not an expert. Anyway, after Alexandrine was born, I guess everything just snapped. I cut Mom and D—Lincoln out of my life because they didn't approve of Owen."

"Your ex-husband?" Grandma Maggie asks. At my nod, she asks, "Why didn't they approve of him?"

I scoff again, rolling my shoulders. "That's a story..." I reply.

. . .

Dad's tirade on the day that he and Mom first found out about my condition still echo in my ears as my screams of agony fill the delivery room. Your mother would be ashamed of you, Leia! I heard him shouting in my mind. If she saw you now, she would be so beyond angry at you... I allow my screams to drown out my father's words of anger, five months old...

I remembered it was a week after New Year's when he and Mom had come for a visit. I could tell by our conversations over the last few weeks that they weren't altogether on board with Owen's and my relationship, nor were they pleased with Chelsea for keeping it from them. However, they knew that I was eighteen and that Owen was nearly nineteen, so there was nothing to be done, really.

I wasn't expecting them; I didn't have a class that afternoon, but Owen did, so I was alone in the apartment. I peeked through the spy-hole as I'd been taught to do and immediately felt myself tensing up when I realized who was behind the front door. I quickly made a grab for a sweater of mine hanging up on a peg by the door and pulled it around me before unlatching the door and smiling at them. I greeted them and invited them in, telling them to sit down while I went into the kitchen to get them something to drink.

"Traffic okay?" I ask them casually.

"Fine," my mother replies. "Light. Your father and I took a couple of hours off for lunch to come by and see you."

"I'm sure she figured that out by now, Edythe," my father said, a light chuckle behind his tone.

"Well, it's good to see you," I say, walking into the living room with a glass of iced tea for each of them. "I'd come by more often, but the commute is exhausting and what with all the schoolwork I have to do..." I shake my head, perching in a chair next to the couch, where they sat as I handed over their drinks. "I had no idea that a double major would be so difficult..."

My father nods. "Well, it'll be good to have another lawyer in the family, sweetheart," he says with a smile.

"Henrietta would be so proud of you, Leia, really," my mother tells me.

"She had me pretty young, didn't she?" I ask.

My father nods. "Yes—she was twenty-two. Although by then she'd already built-up her dental practice. She had been in her position for well over two years, due to her graduating from high school at fourteen and college with a Master's Degree at twenty-one. Of course, she was a receptionist throughout high school and became an assistant by her second year of college. She was well-prepared and equipped to take on anything, what with her salary of eight hundred thousand a year, and change, of course..."

"All of course, which went to you," my mother assures me. "The account is set to open for you when you turn twenty-five, although when you're twenty-one, and if you and Owen are married, it will go to you then."

I give a small smile. "Strange how certain trust fund rules are," I muse softly. "Of course, Owen and I are planning on marriage eventually."

"Of course," my mother says, smiling, although my father looks a bit annoyed. "I want you to know that I am here for you every step of the way."

"Thanks, Mom," I reply, "that means a lot..." I sigh. "Owen and I have been together for a while..."

"How long?" my father asks, and I see my mother's eyes glaze over then and then proceed to become preoccupied with some magazines on the coffee table.

I sigh. "The night I broke up with Ulysses, during junior year," I reply, finding that the guilt washed over me immediately.

"You never said why you ended things with him," my father says. "Just a cover story, really, but you never went into detail..."

I bite my lip. "He tried to rape me," I reply. "On school grounds—I left out that part of it. I know it was stupid—you don't have to tell me that. Owen saw the whole thing and told him to get lost but Ulysses wouldn't listen. He beat Owen up pretty bad and I finally managed to drag Owen out of there. I thanked him for helping me and then..." I feel my cheeks heating as I force myself to study the patterns on the used area rug beneath the coffee table—one I had made Owen promise to get rid of.

"I see," my father says. "So... This is why he refused to be adopted?"

I feel the sigh waft through me. "Yes," I reply. "I told him that we could end things and he could get adopted, but Owen was firm. He said that as long as I wanted this relationship, so did he. We both wanted it."

"I see..." My father is quiet for a time, before turning to my mother. "Edythe?" he asks her. "Aren't you going to say anything?"

My mother looks up and, upon feeling her eyes on me, I look up at her. "I knew about it," she said softly.

I grip the arms of the chair I'm sitting in. "What?" I whisper.

"I saw the two of you in the guest house," she tells me. "It was a few months before the adoption and everything... I didn't say anything because I knew that it was already too late..."

"Edythe!" my father admonishes.

"I saw the way you two looked at each other," she continues, ignoring my father's outburst. "It was—is—the way that Lincoln and I look at each other. I wouldn't be so selfish to take that away from you, Leia."

"Edythe, are you insane?!" my father demands. "If anyone—anyone—got word of what they were doing behind closed doors, we could have lost Chelsea! She would have been taken away from us...!"

"Ah, yes, Chelsea," I mutter, leaning back in my seat. "She knew the whole time, you know—about me and Owen."

"Yes, we know, sweetheart," my mother replies.

"Did she tell you that when she found out the only way she'd keep her trap shut is with money?!" I demand.

My father's eyes turn and lock to mine. "I don't believe you."

I whip out my phone immediately and pull up my video voicemail system. They are time-stamped—nobody could tell me that they were faked. I manage to find one of the many I'd saved of Chelsea, for this very purpose. Did I feel bad about ratting out my sister? Not in the slightest.

"Hey, Leia—it's Chelsea, of course you could tell by the person talking to the screen right now," she said into her phone. "Listen, it's about four-thirty on June nineteenth, two-thousand thirty-six. I saw that you weren't at the graduation rehearsal, which is where you promised to meet me to hand over the two-hundred you promised me to keep quiet about you and Owen going to Bobby's party. Well, you know where I live," she says with a laugh. "Give it to me by midnight, or Mom and Dad'll be kicking you out! Love you, sister!" she says, in a voice dripping with sarcasm before the screen goes black.

My father looks shocked. "You're kidding..."

I shake my head, pulling up another video.

"Hey, Leia, Chelsea here," she says. "We're at September of two-thousand thirty-six," she goes on. "Listen, I'm not here to pass judgement or anything like that, but when you ran off and threw up while we were shopping with Mom, and then just up and left, I mean—come on! You're begging for attention here," she said with a scoff behind her tone. "I know you've been throwing up for a couple of weeks now, Leia, and believe me, you're not fooling anyone. I expect a doubling in my payments to keep quiet about you and Owen, and an additional fee to keep quiet about my niece or nephew," she says with an evil smile before waving to all of us on the screen, followed by it turning black.

"Please tell me she's lying—that this is all part of some epic, practical joke," my mother says, her voice begging me.

I sigh and shake my head. "Sorry," I reply. "It's true."

My father immediately gets to his feet, making a grab for my sweater and tearing it off me. "Dammit Leia!" he screamed, getting a good look at me.

"Lincoln!" my mother yelled.

"Dad, stop!" I cry, getting to my feet and walking away from him. "I've made my decision! I am keeping this baby, and nothing you say or do is going to influence my decision!"

"We're leaving," he says, glowering in my direction. "Edythe, let's go," he growls at my mother, walking towards the door. "Your mother would be ashamed of you, Leia!" he thundered in the direction of the front door. "If she saw you now, she would be so beyond angry at you..."

"Lincoln, okay... That's enough," my mother says, crossing the room and putting a hand onto his back. "Let's go." Once he is out the door, she turns back to look at me and gives me a rather sad, pathetic expression. She mouths, I'm sorry before going out the door and leaving me there.

. . .

"I think it was a combination of the two," I say, staring into the murky color of my cup of tea, seeing the outline of my face.

"His anger?" Grandma Maggie guesses.

I nod. "Yeah. I think, one, he always suspected that I was a lesbian and I was throwing my life away to be with the first guy who knocked me up and the second guy I slept with. And two—that was the beginning of the end for him."

"How so?"

"I think he knew... I think at some point he must've known that he couldn't have been my biological father. Of course, my legal mother, Henrietta, always assumed that it was her brother's sperm and a donor egg that ended up getting her pregnant in the first place. And that theory all went to hell and back today..."

Grandma Maggie sighs, bringing up the cup to her lips and sipping it. "I take it that, now, you'd like to know what happened with me."

"You think so?" I ask sarcastically.

Grandma Maggie ignores my tone of voice. "I suppose I deserve that," she replies with a slight smile. "Well, your statement earlier was correct."

"Which one?" I asked.

"That I died—I did die."

Immediately, I feel ridged all over again. "But you just said I wasn't talking to a ghost or poltergeist or angel or whatever it is you undead like to be called!" I cry out, almost falling out of my seat.

My grandmother smiles patiently at me. "I'm not a zombie," she tells me patiently with a kind smile. "I'm only sixty-three-years-old here, Leia. You don't have to panic; I'm in perfect health." She sets down her cup then, her eyes staring into mine pleasantly. "You see, the thing is, I died on the operating table, so them just informing everyone that I was dead had to happen. I was taken into the morgue, and that's when I woke up. I had no memory of who I was, and when I was rushed into surgery, the doctors couldn't place me either—I looked like hell, or, that's what I would guess," she tells me. "After the operation to save my life was a success, I was given clothes and released from the hospital. I had my fingerprints scanned and they gave me money from my bank account, and then I left New York and went off into the sunset."

"They usually close accounts..." I said quietly.

"Your grandfather can get pretty consumed by his grief," Grandma Maggie tells me patiently.

"And where have you been all this time?" I ask her.

"I went to California, and worked in a diner by the ocean. Surfers were the typical customers in that joint," she replies.

"How'd you get your memory back?" I ask her.

"There was a shooting at the restaurant," she replies. "I grabbed the gun from behind the counter and executed both the perps without blinking. The gunfire was the thing that brought me back—shattering glass, screaming people, everyone begging for mercy from all sides. When I gave my name to the officers, they said they admired my work in New York. I guess they thought I was undercover or something—that, or on some weird holiday. Then they said that they heard about your grandfather's remarriage to Ophelia, and, well..."

I lower my eyes, gripping the tea cup, the warmth radiating through my fingers as I come to the tip of the iceberg. "You know about grandpa?" I ask.

Grandma Maggie nods. "Yes, and I'm happy for him, really I am. I couldn't have expected someone as amazing and wonderful as him not to eventually find someone amazing to love. Besides, I was gone for thirteen years, so to hold this against him would be terrible."

"Ophelia left him," I say quietly, watching the plumes of smoke. "She said that the baby wasn't his, but I don't believe that—she's just trying to get sympathy for the entire thing."

Grandma Maggie looks shocked. "If you're just trying to tell me all this just to make me feel better..."

I shake my head at her. "I promise I'm not," I tell her. "Ophelia's young and fickle and she's—"

"She's your age," Grandma Maggie says knowingly.

"Well, yeah..." I say, stumbling over my words as I fumble to get my phone out of my pocket. "Does that really matter now?" I demand, keying in the numbers like there's no tomorrow.

"What are you doing?" she demands as I bring the phone up to my face, clicking the FaceTime icon quicker than you or anyone else can possibly say—sober, of course—"antidisestablishmentarianism".

"You'll see," I reply, waiting for the connection to take hold. It would certainly be a complicated situation, since my grandfather and I certainly hadn't spoken since I'd walked out of my interview. "Grandpa?" I said as soon as his face was staring at mine through my phone.

"Hey, Leia," he says patiently. "Everyone's looking for you—your mom even called asking me if I'd seen you—"

"Never mind that now, Grandpa—I'm safe, I promise," I say, raising my eyes to Grandma Maggie across the table. "I'm sitting with someone that I think you may want to speak to."

"If this is an attempt at reconciliation, don't," he tells me firmly. "Ophelia and I are finished—I don't know why I tried to move on from your grandmother. There's absolutely nobody out there that compares to her..."

"It's been seven hours and fifteen days, since you took your love away," Grandma Maggie sings from across the table without a moment's hesitation. "I go out every night and sleep all day, since you took your love away..."

Grandpa Hunter immediately looks as if he has tears in his eyes. "Leia, I swear to god, if this is a trick..."

"No trick!" Grandma Maggie shouts, immediately grabbing onto my phone and latching onto it, turning it to face her. "Hunter?" she said, not even momentarily dazed at the notion that he's aged over a decade since the last time she'd seen him personally. "Oh, Hunter..."

"Maggie?" he whispered, and I could hear him choking back sobs.

"I know—I'm sorry," Grandma Maggie says quickly before Grandpa Hunter could say anything at all. "I know I have to explain everything to you, I really do, but, darling—"

"Where are you?" my grandfather interrupts.

"Leia and Lincoln's house on Long Island—I had my key with me on the day that I went MIA," she replies. "The hospital returned it to me, and I kept it around my neck, never allowing it out of my sight—"

"I'm coming there now," my grandfather declares. "No matter what, Maggie, no matter what—I love you."

My grandmother's eyes are immediately awash with tears. "I love you, too, Hunter," she replies.

. . .

MAGGIE'S POV

My ex decided to go back to his wife and kids instead of being with me. I guess I wasn't enough for him, in the end..."

"New York guy?" Diana asks.

"No," I lie, shaking my head. "He was doing some training with us back when I lived in Seattle. I think he said he was from Chicago."

"Ah," Diana says. "Sorry to hear that."

I shrug, sipping my coffee tentatively. "Hey, it is what it is. What are you going to do about it?"

"Oh..." Diana says softly, looking behind me.

"What?" I ask.

"He's here," she replies quietly.

"Who's here?"

"Hunter," she replies. "Derrick's nephew—adopted him after his dad was killed in the Persian Gulf War," she whispers to me as Hunter goes up to speak with Newton and Cagney, who I saw bears the first name of Wilbur.

"What about his mom?" I ask softly.

"Died in childbirth," she replies easily. "Hunter was only eight when his dad was gunned down unmerciful and then Derrick stepped in. They come from old money, the Jennings," she tells me. "Came over on the Mayflower, apparently. I don't know much about it."

"Oh, I see," I reply, turning away from the gorgeous specimen as Diana leads me over to her desk, where mine is placed just opposite. I smile a little as the name plate says DET. HOLBROOK , making me feel important as I take a seat. "Do we have any cases?" I ask her.

"Not now," Diana replies, sitting across from me. "But that can all change in the blink of an eye."

I nod. "Good to know."

"Diana, for shame," Hunter says rather cockily as he makes his way towards us. "I can't believe that you didn't introduce me to your partner."

Diana shrugs. "Why should I?"

"Very funny," Hunter says, shaking his head. "Come on, I'm your cousin. The least you could do is play nice."

I raise my eyebrows at Diana, who sighs.

"Derrick is my biological father," Diana clarifies. "But I was raised by my mother because the Jennings family didn't approve of me. And technically speaking, I'm your sister, Hunter, since you were adopted by Derrick. Remember that," she says, pointing a perfectly manicured, scarlet-colored finger at him before gathering the files on her desk and walking off, presumably, to the file room.

"Tension in paradise, I see," I remark softly, looking over the paperwork that has been put on my desk, about a serial rapist named Tony Moreno. "Looks like some paperwork from Special Victims' got mixed up in here..."

"Let's see," Hunter says, looking down. "Ah. Well, murder trump's rape, and we suspect Tony Moreno of murder. We've got about another week to prove it, but if we don't get anywhere, that case is thrown out the window and SVU gets him on all those rapes."

"I see." I raise my eyes to peer at Hunter; he has a strong jawline, fair skin, brown hair, intelligent brown eyes, and those lips... I quickly bite my lower lip and look away from him. Dammit, not the boss's son and certainly not on the first day of work, Holbrook, I say angrily to myself.

"So sorry." Hunter says, putting out a hand. "Sergeant Hunter Grayson. Nice to meet the new recruit... Margaret," he says, reading my badge.

"Maggie," I reply, taking his hand and turning to look at him full in the face for the first time, causing his eyes to widen ever so slightly. "Good to meet you." I shake his hand briefly before dropping it; his hand remains suspended in mid-air for a moment before another gentleman, who appears to be a family man in his mid-forties, walks up to us.

"Ah, the new recruit, I see," says the man, putting out his hand. "Detective Jackson Travers, been here six years. How the heck are ya?!" he says enthusiastically with a barrel of laughter before pulling me up out of my seat and giving me a big hug. "I like to keep things friendly," he confesses, laughing a bit before letting me go. "I have to confess that my wife of over twenty years doesn't always see it that way, but oh well," he says, still laughing.

"You'll see to it that you keep it professional with Margaret," Hunter says, giving Jackson a stern look before going over to his desk, a large one, separated from all the others, right by Captain Jennings's office.

"Don't mind Hunter, he gets tightly wound on Monday mornings," Jackson tells me with a kind smile.

I return the smile. "New York born and raised, huh?"

"Queens, guilty," he says, throwing up his hand with a chuckle. "The wife and I own the apartment house that I grew up in now. Fixed it up real nice; now it's a full-fledged home. The kids love it..."

"Kids?" I ask, laughing. "How many?"

"Six, bless my wife," he replies, covering a hand over his heart. "The twins, Audrey Anne and Lillian Marie are now at Hudson University, full scholarships—our Audrey for law and our Lillian for medicine. Then there's Jackson Jr.; he's going to graduate high school this year. Then came Harry, and he's in his second year of high school. Then was Rosie Mae, and she's due to start high school next year—in September. And then there's Joe, we call him Joey, and he's going to start middle school in September. We're all proud of all of them, although they can get a bit loud when they want something. You got kids?"

I shake my head. "No. I just ended things with someone about a year ago." I shrug at him; there is something very paternal about Jackson, and I find that I feel very safe with him. "Besides, I've got time—I'm only twenty-two."

"The wife and I were married at eighteen," Jackson says; he is gleeful, and not boasting about this in any way, shape or form. "As soon as high school graduation happened—BOOM! —we were saying our vows. I joined the police academy right away, and she took night school because our twins were born right away. Genetic things, twins; my mother's side had 'em, her father's side had 'em."

I nod at that. "Yeah, twins run in my family, too," I reply. "My mother is actually a triplet, and my father has two brothers who are twins are well..."

Hunter lets out a groan and gets to his feet; his swivel desk chair goes flying across the room and collides with a filing cabinet as he comes towards us. "Now I know that it appears as if Margaret is this shiny new toy that we all just have to have, but we've got work to do. Margaret, do a brief meet-and-greet with Newton and Cagney and then find Valentina in the file room. Go on," he says when I don't move to do his bidding. "Chop-chop."

"Chop-chop?" I ask, raising my eyebrows. "Oh, no, no, no. I'm sorry, but you have no right to speak to me that way. I'm not just going to chop vegetables—or, in this case, be rude to fellow members of the squad—on your say-so. It may be my first day on the job, and I might be only a detective, but you're a sergeant. I answer to the captain, Grayson, not to you."

Hunter looks shocked that I have dared to speak out of turn. He crosses the room so as he is standing before the office of Captain Jennings and moves the blinds ever so slightly so as we can see him. There he is, sitting with his back to us in his green tweed suit which made my back itch when he put his arm around me (hey, the best of us are allergic to wool, calm down) his phone pressed up to his ear. I take it to mean it is a sensitive call, and quickly look away, not wanting to get caught for spying on the boss.

"Since you're new, no disciplinary action will be taken against you," Hunter says to me, obviously trying to keep his temper. "But I want to be the first one to tell you that if the captain is otherwise engaged, orders automatically defer to me. I fully intend to take the lieutenants exam next year, and when I pass, I fully intend to take you in front of the disciplinary board if this unprofessional, childish attitude of yours is used again. Is that understood?"

I lower my eyes. "Loud and clear, sarge," I reply.

"Now hang on a minute, Hunter," Jackson says, stepping slightly in front of me, "I know full well that you conveniently used your status as the adopted son and biological nephew of Jennings to step in and get promoted..."

"That's enough, Travers," Hunter replies sharply.

"He's right, Hunter," Gloria says, shooting me a kind smile, especially in her bright green eyes; she wears her abundant curly red hair is caught back in an abundant ponytail, which hangs elegantly to the middle of her back. "You joined the department after all of us, and you know it. By all rights, the sergeant position should've gone to Jackson..."

"But you swooped it right out from under him," Wilbur says, shaking his head at Hunter; Wilbur was lean and fit, standing just over six feet tall with a serious and intelligent expression on his face. Wilbur quite reminded me of the English actor Matthew MacFadyen, who was mainly known for playing Mr. Darcy opposite Keira Knightley in Pride and Prejudice. "You've got to give it a rest. We know you're a sergeant, Hunter, it doesn't make you a superstar."

"But it has made you a bully," Jackson says softly. "Picking on the poor kid like that on her first day. Yes, she should know the rules and regulations about how we run things here, but, like I said, it's her first day. Cut her some slack."

Hunter rolled his eyes, gathered some files, and called to a detective who just walked in, "Wilkes! You're with me today!" and hauled the poor, naïve-looking man out of the squad room.

"Thanks, guys," I say, turning to them all with grateful smiles as Diana comes back into the squad room with more files.

"We look after our own," Gloria tells me with a smile.

. . .

After I hand Leia beck her phone, I found myself becoming as jittery as I was when I saw Hunter for the first time, at the age of twenty-two. The notion that I actually was going to see him again was nearly too much for me to handle, and I was pacing around the living room. I calculated the distance as nearly sixty miles, an over an hour, which could be two, considering rush hour was officially in the works on the freeway. And then there was the rain to consider, which made my head into a bunch of diner mashed potatoes and gravy...

Even though I couldn't remember my name, I knew that, since I was wearing a wedding ring, I had to be married. I didn't ever question it; since it was there, I automatically knew it to be the truth. I looked down at the thing, remembering Hunter's proposal, which had melted my heart and made me never want to lose him ever again. With Elliot in and out of the picture years and years ago now, all I could think of, Why does Hunter even bother to put up with me? Why does he claim to care so much, when any normal guy would just cut and run at the first sign of trouble?

"Because we're cops," he'd always told me simply. "We're cops, and cops don't run away from their problems—they run right into the fray."

I look outside and through the rain, the headlights sending a wave of comfort through me that I hadn't felt in such a long time. I ran to the front door, throwing it open and the scent of the rain filled my nose and filled me with happiness. I knew it was Hunter's car as I dashed out into the extreme weather and right towards it, as the door came open and there was Hunter, as dashing as I'd remembered him from our first encounter. His jawline was still strong and pronounced, his hair was flecked perfectly with silver, and those lips... Those beautiful lips that had sealed the deal were still intact, in all their glory...

"Hunter," I whispered, knowing that I must look very silly with my hair plastered all around my forehead and down my back. I was over sixty and acting like a teenager, almost as if I was breaking curfew to run out into the rain for a secret, clandestine rendezvous with a sweetheart. "Hunter..." My name was frozen on my lips, like an old VHS tape or DVD that was fuzzy in the same location every time, thus preventing the second character from getting a word in edgewise.

Hunter reaches out then, cupping my cheek, and suddenly I'm unsure where our tears begin and the rain ends, and we're just staring at each other, growing more and more drenched by the minute. "Maggie..." He whispers back to me, his other hand snaking around my waist.

"All I could think of was getting back here," I whisper. "All I could think of was getting back to you..."

"Shh, shh," Hunter says, pulling me into his arms. "It's okay."

"No, it's not," I reply, sobbing in his arms, the rain never subsiding around us both, the drops turning into smacks on the curved driveway. "You got remarried while my mind took a literal vacation from reality. I didn't know where I was or who I was and all I had to go on was my wedding ring, the identity assigned to me, and this key, the key to this house..."

"Where were you, all this time?" he asks me.

"California, by the beach," I reply. "I was a waitress in a diner. I went by Meg Grey, because I forgot the last syllable of our surname. That's how much of a use I was—the doctors thought it was a side effect of a medication or the potential trauma of being shot and dying..."

"You actually died?" Hunter asks.

"Yes," I reply, looking up. "I was actually died. But nothing, nothing would stop me from getting back to you. I love you," I say, standing on my toes and taking his face into my hands. "I love you..."

"I love you, Maggie," Hunter replies, leaning down in the rain and kissing me, and, at once, I feel whole again.

. . .

LEIA' POV

I watch my grandparents literally getting back together before my eyes, and look down at my phone, vibrating in my hands. It says DAD across the screen, and my eyes fill momentarily with tears at the notion that we neither of us are able to know that for sure anymore. I swipe the green phone icon automatically and place the phone to my ear. "Hello?" I ask.

"Hey, kiddo—doing okay?"

"Yeah, yeah, Dad," I say, my voice choking back sobs as Grandma Maggie had only just done an hour and a half ago.

"What's wrong, sweetheart?" he asks me.

I reach out then, pressing my hand to the window, the coolness giving me the courage to speak. "Dad, did you know?" I ask him.

"Did I know what, sweetheart?"

"Did you know that Dominick Carisi is my biological father?" I ask him, my voice trembling, "and that Mom is actually my biological mother?"

The silence on the other end of my phone nearly causes me to break the window in front of me, but instead, I'm left there, watching Grandma Maggie and Grandpa Hunter reconcile, all the while listening to the silence around me.