Begin Part 21

Bianca arrived at the hospital to find the entrance devoid of life and corridors dark and silent. Despite an aura that many would have found creepy, she preferred it that way. The usual array of visitors had long since gone home while patients were settled in their rooms. The E.R. was undoubtedly its usual mass of confusion and desperation, but the rest of the hospital seemed like a quieter, safer place without the teaming masses and their respective traumas. She could almost pretend it was nothing more than an overly antiseptic spa at this hour. On her way to the elevators she passed a security guard who was hurrying the opposite direction and focused on his radio. He glanced her way, but paid no more attention to her than she paid to him. She’d forgotten even seeing him by the time she stepped onto the elevator, her mind already on all the things she wanted to say to Lena to reassure her and help her see all the reasons moving to Chicago with her mother was a bad idea.

Lost in her plans, she paid scant attention to her surroundings when she stepped onto Lena’s floor, unaware of the slight increase in sound, the shuffle of shoes on tile or the low murmur of voices until a nurse nearly ran her down as she entered the main corridor. The woman muttered an apology, but never slowed her pace, leaving Bianca staring after her with a bemused expression. Somebody was having a bad night. Then she noticed several others hurrying away down other corridors. More than one bad night by the look of things. Frowning, she looked around, suddenly uneasy. The staff was tense and moving fast, reminding her of other times when people she cared for had been at risk.

What if---

No, it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t let herself panic. Okay, so something was wrong. It didn’t mean Lena was the one in danger. The Pine Valley Hospital had plenty of patients.

Despite the mental reassurance, she redoubled her pace only to skid to a halt as she rounded a corner and saw that the door to Lena’s room was half open to make way for an orderly who hurried away from the room in the opposite direction, moving fast.

She landed on the urge to panic with both feet. She was in a hospital. There were bound to be tense situations and orderlies came and went all the time. It didn’t mean a thing.

Then a distressed looking Maria Santos-Grey exited Lena’s room and Bianca knew she was wrong. It meant everything.

"Oh god," the tiny gasp escaped barely parted lips, but she didn’t move. Couldn’t move. Please god, let her be okay. The thought ran through her head at amazing speed, leaving more than enough time for it to repeat itself several times before a second figure exited the room. Paulina Kundera, pale and trembling and leaning heavily on a slender figure. For the briefest second, Bianca thought it was Lena, the reaction more instinct than thought, but no. The body was just as tall and elegantly curvaceous, but the hair was longer, a hint of crow’s feet and the faint texturing of aging skin marking the owner as a good 20 years older than her lover. Irina.

Bianca half expected the other woman to see her and treat her to another round of insults served with a side of subtle threats, but neither Irina nor Paulina even glanced her way. Just as well. She wouldn’t be welcome, certainly wouldn’t help the situation, but she couldn’t just leave, not if something was seriously wrong.

Then a final figure exited behind the two women, his presence startling Bianca: Jackson Montgomery, still in a suit and tie as though he’d come straight from the office, his expression grim.

Maria turned to speak to Paulina, her voice too low for Bianca to hear what she said, but it was easy to see how tense she was, her careful movements those of someone trying to appear calm when they were anything but. Bianca had seen that professional mien in doctors enough times to recognize it. Her worst fears were confirmed a second later when Paulina wavered so badly that Irina slid a protective arm across her shoulders, ready to cushion a collapse if need be.

No one noticed the figure silently watching them. It seemed strange how in an open corridor full of people one could feel so invisible. Paralyzed by shock, Bianca’s only movement was the rapid sweep of her eyes as her gaze darted back and forth between her uncle and the doctor in the hunt for clues about what had happened. Jack stood listening intently as Maria spoke, silent other than an occasional comment to Paulina that appeared to be nothing more than offers of sympathy.

Plenty of emotion, but nothing to tell her what had happened.

Stomach muscles clenching tightly, Bianca took a step forward. There was no reason for Jackson to be there unless---

No, she couldn’t let herself contemplate the worst. She took another hesitant step, her heart pounding so hard it hurt as it slammed against the inside of her ribcage. Another step followed even as Jack reached out to settle a sympathetic hand on Paulina’s shoulder, his deep voice just loud enough for Bianca to make out the first real words she’d heard since arriving.

"I promise you Mrs. Kundera, everything possible is being done to---"

Bianca didn’t intend to speak. "Uncle Jack?" But suddenly the words were out and hanging in the air like her breath during a harsh winter chill.

Every eye in the place turned her way, but all she saw was the uneasy, worried expression on her uncle’s face.

"Uncle Jack," she said again, "what’s happened?" Even knowing she should just shut up and go, she couldn’t move and couldn’t hold back the obvious question.

"Bianca, honey," he began carefully, "I think maybe you should---"

"Was it you?" Paulina demanded, breaking away from Irina and advancing on Bianca before anyone could stop her. Her hand came up and Bianca instinctively braced for a blow.

It never came.

Instead a magazine was shoved under her nose. It flashed by so quickly that she barely had time to register the cover. Unfortunately, Bianca didn’t need a good look to recognize it. A back issue of Tempo magazine. She remembered the headlines and pictures. Unlike the tabloids, Edmund and Brooke’s version had been tastefully salacious, the cover suggestive while the Photoshopped picture of Lena in bed with Chandler CFO Bob Barrett had gotten a full page inside. It had come out while Lena was still in jail, falsely accused of insider trading, and managed to include every filthy rumor imaginable, albeit couched in artfully delicate language. It had sold out the same day it hit the stands.

She abruptly realized Paulina was still speaking as the magazine swept past the tip of her nose again.

"Did you give this to her hoping to cause a little more pain? Wasn’t the way you treated her enough revenge?"

Everyone else fell silent---either waiting for an answer or just paralyzed with shock---leaving Bianca to face the enraged woman on her own. But knowing no more than she did, she could only shake her head dazedly, her jaw hanging open, eyes wide with fear and confusion. "I don’t know what you’re---" she managed to croak.

Paulina slapped the magazine into the girl’s chest, not giving her a chance to finish the denial. "We found this in her room...open to that damned article...and she’s missing. Someone must have given it to her." Her voice gained volume with every word until the final accusation came out as a dull roar. "Was it you?!"

Still frozen in place, Bianca could only shake her head, too scared and overwhelmed to form a coherent answer. Her chin dropped and she stared at what she could see of the hated cover.

Show Lena that magazine? That was the last thing she would have done, but she didn’t know how to make Paulina Kundera believe that, not when the woman clearly hated her with a passion. "Mrs. Kundera," she managed at last, "I didn’t," she croaked. "I wouldn’t." If Lena had seen that, read it, it meant everything Bianca thought she’d regained was slipping away like an early morning mist. "I would never hurt Lena that way---"

She didn’t get any farther as Paulina Kundera’s temper exploded. "You’ve done nothing but hurt her," the older woman raged. "You’ve never been there for here...couldn’t be bothered to care even when she..." She paused, her eyes falling away, voice so thick she was nearly incomprehensible as she continued, "...she tried to hurt herself...not even then...." She choked off, her complexion suddenly tinged in grey while she wavered on her feet, so unsteady Bianca thought she was going to collapse. "She needed you. You were everything to her. Why didn’t she mean even a little to you?"

"She did." A chill slid through the younger woman as though someone had walked over her grave as she realized she’d used the past tense. "I mean she does," she corrected as quickly as she could get the words out, putting extra emphasis on the last syllable. "She does," she whispered again, though she doubted Paulina Kundera heard her.

Lost in her own pain, Paulina she looked away, visibly struggling to catch her breath.

Lena had asked her to look after her mother. Hell of a job she was doing, Bianca thought with a guilty wince.

"Mama, please." No rage or fury in Irina’s voice this time. "Just let it go," she soothed. "The girl doesn’t matter." Curving her hands to her mother’s shoulders, she tried to pull her back, but Paulina resisted the pressure as she looked up again, straightening herself with effort to scowl at Bianca, her bearing almost regal as she fixed a hard look on the younger woman."

"You would have been kinder to a dog in the street than you were to her."

Fighting to drag air into lungs that threatened to collapse with every breath, Bianca wanted to scream and shout and deny the charge, but the words wouldn’t come. Her mouth worked silently and she tried to find something to say, but there was nothing. She was too lost and overwhelmed, everything Paulina had said spinning in her head as she struggled to assemble it into a coherent picture, the words forming and reforming in new patterns in her efforts to understand the incomprehensible.

"Do you even know what she’s gone through for months?" Paulina demanded when no one else spoke, still too shocked to say a word. "Do you even care about the hate directed her way because of what happened to you...the loneliness...the guilt...so bad she tried to...." Again she couldn’t finish, and fell silent for a long moment. "She kept hoping you might forgive...." A few tears spilled onto her cheeks and her teeth were tightly clenched as she fought to contain them. "Will you finally have punished her enough when she’s cold in the ground?"

Shaking off the paralysis, Jack stepped between the two. "This won’t help find Lena," Jackson reminded the older woman, his voice an odd mix of firm and gentle. He had nothing but compassion for the older woman, but he wasn’t going to stand by and watch her use his niece as a punching bag. He traded a look with Irina, silently warning her.

The look he got in return was just as hard and just as determined. "Mama, come on," Irina said, firmly pulling her mother back. "The police and security are searching for Lena. That’s what matters...not the girl or her family. They’re not worth making yourself crazy over."

"Your daughter’s right," Maria inserted in hopes of calming the situation. She stepped forward for the first time since Bianca’s abrupt appearance. "We’ll get her back, but right now you need to stay calm and take care of yourself." She offered a hint of an encouraging smile. "The last thing she’s going to need when we find her is for you to be ill."

"Come," Irina repeated the plea, afraid the stress was truly on the verge of damaging her mother’s health. It wasn’t the time for a stroke or heart attack, not when everything else seemed to be going wrong.

"Whatever happens Lena’s going to need you," Maria added to bolster the plea. "You need to take care of yourself for her."

Paulina stood stiffly, the knowledge that she needed to care for herself at war with the instincts driving her to find her child and strike back at what she saw as her tormentors. Unfortunately, she had no choice but to trust others to bring her daughter back to her. She took a deep breath, fighting the overwhelming terror until she could offer a shaky nod.

"Come on," Irina urged again, pulling lightly, desperate to get the situation under control before things got even worse.

Another nod, then leaning heavily on the supportive arm, Paulina allowed the younger woman to draw her away from the confrontation.

As she led her mother to a nearby waiting area, Irina threw a hard look over one shoulder and nodded to indicate Bianca. "Get her out of here," she mouthed, eyes blazing threateningly.

Maria followed them, crouching down next to Paulina as she took a seat, and taking her pulse, clearly worried.

Badly shaken, Bianca stared after the elderly woman. She was trembling, the adrenaline rush having fled, leaving exhaustion and terror in its wake. "I want to know exactly what happened," she said without looking at her uncle, afraid that if she did she might just break down completely.

Curving a gentle hand to her shoulder, Jack tried to draw her away from Lena’s room. "Let’s just---"

"Why are you here?" Holding her ground, Bianca resisted the light pressure, still staring after Paulina Kundera where Maria was still checking her over and looking worried. God, she had to be okay. It would destroy Lena if anything happened to her mother.

Noting the stubborn set of his niece’s jaw, Jack accepted she wouldn’t leave without some kind of answers. He would have preferred to avoid the discussion, but it seemed he had little choice. "The hospital called the police to help with the search. The officer on duty recognized Lena’s name and called me."

Bianca nodded slowly, absorbing her uncle’s answer. That made sense. She took another breath, trying desperately to clear her head, but it was harder than hell to think when all she could see in her mind’s eye was that damn magazine flashing past, the moment replaying over and over again. If it had her shaking, what must it have done to Lena to be handed such an ugly version of her past? "Lena," she said at last, "do they have any idea where---"

"Bianca, we need to take this somewhere else," Jack broke in, aware of the potential for more conflict as long as Bianca was anywhere near her former lover’s family.

Bianca drew breath to argue, then Paulina glanced her way, her eyes watery and full of sick depression, as though she could no longer even summon the energy to hate. She looked utterly and completely lost, and as much as the older woman hated her, Bianca couldn’t help but pity her. She had to pray she was all right for Lena’s sake.

"Please," Jack whispered when his niece didn’t answer. "Like it or not, your being here makes it harder on Lena’s mother. There’s another waiting room not far from here. I’ll answer any questions you have," he promised, realizing she’d gone into stubborn mode and wouldn’t accept anything less. "But let’s just go there...and leave her family in peace." They’d had days of stress and terror, and his niece’s continued presence was cruel. He could only pray Bianca would see sense and do as he asked.

Another beat, then Bianca nodded. Accepting his judgment, she gave way to the gentle pressure and allowed him to draw her down the corridor and around a corner. They found the waiting room and he guided her to a chair where she sank down, knees suddenly trembling so hard it was a wonder she’d managed to stay upright as long as she had.

Lena knew the truth---the thought kept playing over and over again in her head---only it was the worst, ugliest, most corrupt version of it. For a moment she thought she might just throw up. "What happened?" she questioned, each word coming out distinct and separate with an unnatural pause between them.

Taking a seat next to his niece, Jack folded his hands together and leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees. "Lena was in radiology and her mother left to get something to eat...when Mrs. Kundera returned, she found the magazine...open...and Lena missing. According to the orderly who brought her down from her tests, she had it with her when he picked her up."

Bianca just stared at her uncle, struggling to put everything together. "Why would Paulina Kundera think I gave it to her?" she demanded raggedly after a beat. "That anyone would have?" She made a sweeping gesture to indicate their surroundings. "It’s a hospital. There are magazines in all the waiting rooms." She couldn’t imagine anyone would be so cruel as to intentionally hand that to Lena. It had to be an accident. "It was probably just lying around and...god, it’s just bad luck." That had to be the explanation. Anything else was just inconceivable. Besides, it was just like her luck for this to happen now.

Jack was silent for a long moment, tempted to let her retain her protective wall of denial.

"Uncle Jack," the girl whispered when he still hadn’t answered, his very silence making a lie of her beliefs.

"It’s not the kind of waiting room that has magazines," he explained quietly, "and the orderly remembered her saying something about woman giving it to her." No question about it from his tone. It was no accident.

It took a moment for his answer to penetrate Bianca’s brain. When it did, the words came in slow, halting bursts as she worked her way through the disbelief. "Somebody gave her that...intentionally...to hurt her?" She couldn’t believe it. She let her head fall forward into her hands, the enormity of that cruelty washing over her. Without all the walls she normally used to protect herself, Lena would have been nearly as vulnerable as a child. "I wouldn’t do that," she insisted more to herself than him, needing to reassure herself that no matter the problems between she and Lena, she would never do something that intentionally vicious. When he didn’t answer she looked up, shaking her head, a couple of tears spilling from her lashes onto a gently rounded cheek. "I wouldn’t."

Seeing the doubt in her eyes, Jack quickly nodded. "I know," he soothed, "but under the circumstances...well, I think you can understand why it would be best if you left."

Bianca instantly shook her head, rejecting that idea. "I can’t," she croaked. "I can’t leave when she’s...when I don’t know how she is." Lena was hurt and running scared. Bianca had no intention of going anywhere until she knew her lover was safe.

Reaching out, Jack laid a hand over his niece’s. "I realize that you still care about Lena...and it’s very sweet of you...but there’s nothing you can do for her tonight." He offered a gentle smile, hoping she’d see the obvious: that she had no place here. "Why don’t I call you a cab," he suggested. As shaken as she was, he didn’t want Bianca trying to drive.

He received a firm headshake in reply, but Bianca didn’t trust herself to speak as she was once again reminded that no one thought she had a place in Lena’s life.

"Then why don’t I call Kendall," he suggested. They’d become so close, and maybe a friendly ear would make things easier on the girl. "I’m sure she’d be happy to give you a ride."

"I’m not leaving," Bianca found her voice and dismissed that idea without pause. "I’ll stay away from Lena’s family...but I’m not going anywhere."

"Bianca---" Jack began, his tone reasonable.

"I mean it," Bianca snapped and flashed a glare his way, shaking her head silently.

Jack took a deep breath, massaging his brow as he debated what to do. "Bianca, please," he said at last, "They’re already scared to death." As much as he loved the girl, she was pushing too hard. He understood. Despite their breakup, it was obvious she was still emotionally invested. And there were things she didn’t know, so maybe her refusal to back down was understandable, but he couldn’t just stand by and watch her inflict more pain, even unintentionally, on a woman who’d already had to bear too much during the previous several days. "You need to leave," he exhaled even as she continued to shake her head in refusal. Frustrated by her unwillingness to see that this was the last place she belonged, he ran a hand over his hair, jaw muscles grinding. "Look," he said at last, "I understand you still have feelings for Lena and want to help...if anything had happened to your mother during the times we weren’t together I would have gone a little crazy..."

Reminded of her mother, Bianca suddenly stood, her back to her uncle, arms folded tightly across her chest.

Thinking she was just reacting to the emotional intensity of the moment, Jack softened his voice, but continued, "But Bianca, right now, the kindest thing you can do for Lena is leave her family alone."

Bianca barely heard him, her mind on other things; like the fact that her mother had known about Lena’s condition. She swallowed hard, a chill sliding over her skin. No, she couldn’t believe her mom hated Lena that much. "You said the orderly said Lena told him a woman gave her the magazine. Do they know any more than that? A description? Anything?"

Frowning in confusion, Jack shook his head. "I think dark hair was mentioned, but that’s all I know."

Oh god, if that was true it could have been Erica Kane. She wanted to think it wasn’t possible, but she’d known her mother too long to think she was incapable of something like that. "Whoever it was, she knew it would hurt Lena," she gasped, her voice threatening to catch on every syllable.

"Undoubtedly," Jack confirmed, his tone thick with disgust.

"Probably thought it would drive her out of town," Bianca breathed, sick at heart because it was just the sort of revenge that might well appeal to her mother’s often twisted sense of justice. And after that scene in the hospital, her mother might just feel the need to punish someone.

"Or worse," Jack muttered under his breath, then realized he’d spoken aloud even as Bianca spun, a suspicious frown darkening her expression.

"What do you mean?" she demanded before he had a chance to try and undo the damage.

"Nothing," he tried to wave the slip off, but given his fear that Lena’s next stop might be the morgue, he wasn’t terribly believable.

He was keeping something from her. "What do you mean?" Bianca repeated the question, pronouncing each word slowly and carefully. "Uncle Jack," she whispered, willing him to tell her the truth.

Jack was silent for a long moment as he debated his response.

"I should never have let her go," Bianca whispered, desperate to know what he was holding back and using the only weapon she had at her disposal, "and if it’s the last thing I do, I want her back." It wasn’t exactly the whole truth, but at least it was an acknowledgment of what Lena meant to her. "And you know as well as I do that she’d want it too." Her stomach twisted and rolled, but she shook the nausea off, refusing to give way. "I have a right to know," she continued as she took another step toward her uncle.

The muscles along Jack’s jaw bunched and his adam’s apple bobbed under the force of a hard swallow. He felt like he’d taken a solid punch in the gut. He recognized the look in his niece’s eyes all too easily. He’d seen it often enough in the mirror when thinking of Erica. He almost wished he could spare her that kind of overwhelming emotion because it never came cheap. As he watched she straightened her shoulders, marshaling herself as she struggled to stay strong. She’d healed so much and was getting her feet back under her. Maybe it was time she knew the truth. It wouldn’t ease her fear. In fact would probably worsen it, but with Lena missing it seemed likely the truth would come out anyway, and better she hear it from him than Paulina Kundera. The older woman had already come close to telling the girl and if the worst did happen, he feared the older woman would be just as cruel to Bianca as someone had been to her child.

"Yes," he said at last, "you do." Jack leaned back in the chair, took a deep breath and let it out to settle his nerves. He would have given anything to avoid this conversation. "The hospital didn’t just call the police to help with the search. They were legally required to do so," he explained quietly.

"Because of the Cambias case?" Bianca questioned. Logical or not it was the only thing she could think of.

He shook his head. "No...because they’re required to in the event they have a patient at risk of harming themselves leave without being properly released."

The words washed over Bianca but for a moment, she was certain she’d heard wrong, and then it began to sink in as she went back over the words in her head. No, that wasn’t possible. She shook her head, denying even the possibility. "Lena wouldn’t...do...that," she insisted, the words coming out disjointed and oddly staggered, his serious expression threatening to shatter her certainty.

"Bianca, sit down," Jack told her as he gestured to the chair next to him.

Bianca sat. Given how badly her knees were suddenly shaking it was a wonder she didn’t fall. If she could have, she might have fled because every instinct was screaming at her to get out of there before she had to hear what her uncle intended to tell her.

Jack leaned forward again, elbows braced on his knees as he tried to find a way to tell her why Lena’s mother was so scared for her child. "There were no skid marks at the accident site---" he began, the words soft and hesitantly spoken.

A sharp sigh escaped the girl’s lips as relief swept through her, and a little of the awful tension in her chest let go. "It was raining that night," she reminded him. "The roads were slick." That was the most logical explanation because she couldn’t believe the crash had been anything but an accident. If it was that meant...

It meant she’d nearly killed Lena.

No, Bianca couldn’t accept that possibility. Lena wouldn’t do that. She just wouldn’t. She’d proven plenty of times that she had a survival instinct a mile wide and ten miles long. She wasn’t capable of what Jack was suggesting. The roads had been slick. That was all the explanation necessary.

She was almost satisfied with her conclusion when her uncle spoke again.

"Maybe," Jack allowed, ignoring the temptation to leave things as they were. No, she needed to know, and if she really did want Lena back, he needed to be certain she understood what she was getting into. "There’s no way of knowing until she remembers that night." He took a breath, steadied himself, then continued, "But she tried once before."

Bianca drew a breath, then fell silent, her denial unspoken in the face of the look he turned her way.

Jack ran a hand through his hair. He could only hope she was strong enough to hear the truth now. "Months ago...she took poison." He tried to keep his voice low and sympathetic, hoping to drain some of the potential pain from the news. "It was the same one she tried to give Michael. That’s how she proved Kendall wasn’t the one who poisoned the allergy pills."

Feeling like she’d been turned to ice, Bianca just stared. "No," she whispered very softly, but she could see it in his eyes. It was true. "The hospital," she exhaled as she remembered. She’d almost forgotten finding Lena in the hospital, and the sense that something was wrong. Lena had brushed her off with a story about food poisoning, and she’d been so eager to pretend she felt nothing for the Polish woman that she’d bought the lie hook, line, and sinker. "She was in the hospital.... That’s when it happened, isn’t it?"

He nodded.

Suddenly so numb she wasn’t sure she whether she was still in her own body or watching the conversation from a distant point down the hallway, Bianca was slightly surprised to hear herself quietly ask. "Lena’s family, they know, don’t they?"

Her uncle nodded. "But they only found out when they got. Maria had to inform them because of Lena’s condition: there might have been decisions that needed to be made for her."

Bianca’s chin tipped up and down again in an unsteady nod. Well, that explained the hatred. She’d thought it was just about keeping their affair secret, but no, it was far more than that. Paulina hated her for nearly driving Lena to her grave.

Amazing how every time in her life she thought the pain couldn’t get any worse it found a way to defy expectation. "And she’s so panicked because she thinks that when Lena learned the truth she...." She didn’t finish, unable to voice the terror that suddenly held her firmly in its grip. Bad enough to contemplate such a thing, but to speak it aloud would give it a weight and reality that she didn’t think she could bear. Despite that attempted avoidance, thoughts and images of Lena hurting herself in a fit of self-loathing hammered themselves into her brain, breaking past every wall of denial she tried to erect. "Oh god," Bianca exhaled a tiny beat later and pushed to her feet, breaking away from her uncle and the worried look directed her way.

"Bianca, honey---" Jack began. Following close behind, he reached for his niece, but Bianca sensed him coming and ducked his hands, holding up a palm in a halting motion to keep him away.

His sympathy was the last thing she deserved as far as she was concerned. "Don’t," she hissed before her uncle could say any more. The walls seemed to pulse and ripple, threatening to crash inward. Logically, she knew it was purely a psychological panic response, but that didn’t make it any easier to bear. She felt her uncle draw another step closer and took a corresponding step away. She knew him. He would want to settle a hand on her shoulder, then probably draw her into a hug, but the last thing she wanted was human contact when all she could think about was the scenarios looping in her head: Lena taking poison, crashing her car, stepping into traffic, off a roof, or into a gunshop. The images spun faster and faster, coalescing into one running nightmare of bloody tragedy. On the verge of hyperventilating, she rubbed her temple as though she could physically stop her imagination from playing out its sick, hurtful games. She’d pushed Lena to that, hurt her so deeply she’d been ready to give up on life. "I never wanted her hurt," she muttered between harsh breaths.

Only it was a lie. She had meant to hurt Lena.

And she’d gotten her wish. Sick and ashamed, she almost bolted. Paulina was right to want her as far away from Lena as possible. She’d already done too much damage. She’d pushed and pushed, wanting to hurt, and damn near broken Lena in the doing. And if she was right and it was her own mother who’d thrown the latest bomb into Lena’s life, then her mere presence had once again brought nothing but more agony. No wonder Lena had fled that night. If only she’d done so sooner, maybe she’d be whole and happy, not sick at heart and broken in body. In the past Bianca had sometimes wished she’d never caught Lena at the airport the day they’d shared their first, heartfelt kiss because it often seemed as though it would have spared her so much pain. For the first time it occurred to her just how much it would have spared her lover as well.

"I’ll take you home," Jack said quickly, terrified by his niece’s obvious response and kicking himself for telling her the truth. He should have told her whatever lie was necessary to put her off.

"No," Bianca said quickly and spun to face him. She swallowed hard, fighting to keep herself together when the barely plastered over shatter-points were all threatening to come undone. "You need to be here---" He was one more body who could be searching, one who’d be kind and understanding and do everything in his power to help Lena if he could. She needed him to be there.

Because it was suddenly obvious to Bianca that she couldn’t stay.

"Bianca---" Jack began, but before he could say more a stocky figure rounded the nearby corner and began speaking as soon as he glimpsed the D.A.

"They’re still checking the security tapes, Mr. Montgomery, but no sign of Ms. Kundera so far..." Sean Lyman trailed off as he recognized the young woman with his superior. "I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t realize you weren’t alone. I’ll come back later." He started to turn, but Bianca spoke, bringing him back around.

"No," Bianca said. His reason for being there was far more important than her problems. She looked at her uncle. "I need you to take care of her," her voice cracked and broke in spite of her best efforts, "because obviously I can’t." She’d already failed miserably in that regard. Better to get the hell out of there before she made everything worse.

Jack took a step toward the girl, but she darted just out of reach. "Bianca---"

"Just get her back," Bianca begged. She danced back several more steps, avoiding another attempt to reach out to her. "Please." And then she broke. Losing her last little bit of self control, she turned and ran and didn’t stop until her hand collided with the down button next to the elevator. She could hear Jack calling after her and knew he was probably following close behind, but some kind of luck was with her---though one could argue whether it was good or bad---because the elevator doors opened only a moment after she hit the call button. Ducking past a startled nurse, Bianca dove into the elevator, then hammered on the button for the first floor, grateful that the nurse exited before the doors closed.

Finally alone, she heaved a sigh of relief and fell against the back wall, clinging tightly to the bar that ran along the sides at waist level. The world spun dizzily and she realized she was hyperventilating. Bad idea. Passing out would just be the final, humiliating straw so she consciously slowed her breathing until the dizziness began to pass.

In a shocked haze, she was barely aware of the journey to the ground floor. Her mind was running too fast, incoherent thoughts swirling into a mass so twisted and confusing that it left her numb. Too many thoughts had become no thought at all.

It wasn’t the first time she’d felt that way. Not even close. There was the night of the rape, the day she’d discovered she was pregnant, the scene when she’d rejected Lena that last time, there was a perverse familiarity to it all. She distantly recognized the same hot and cold sensation sliding over her skin, the shame and anger, the sense of total helplessness in the face of things she neither face nor change. And like those other times she was all instinct with no logic left, a feral animal bolting in the face of the hunter’s sights.

It was a relief when the doors finally slid open. Running on autopilot, Bianca started to step forward only to pull up short as she got a look at the scene in the lobby. Everything had changed in the time since she’d first arrived. An officer was speaking to the nurse at the front desk, while others were moving from point to point, clearly organizing a search. Through the front windows she could see the faint glitter of red and blue police lights. More police officers.

They were there to search for Lena, hoping to find her before some kind of tragedy could befall her.

And there she was, running away again only minutes after telling her uncle she wanted Lena back. Total strangers and they were willing to do more for the Polish woman than the woman who’d shared her bed. Shuddering under the crushing weight of shame, Bianca couldn’t move. Leave now and it would confirm everything Paulina Kundera and Lena herself had ever accused her of.

Worse, it would confirm everything she’d ever accused herself of.

Glancing down, she had the strangest sense of the crossroads at which she stood. It wasn’t the first time she’d faced a hard choice. In nearly two years of hell, she’d made every bad decision possible, choosing the wrong road nearly every time.

Now she stood at another juncture, ready to run one more time, her instincts driving her to escape before she was hurt one more time.

Only so far her instincts had been a poor guide, driving her to run when she should stand and fight, lie when the truth was her only hope, and push away the very people who would have cherished and protected her.

One hand fisted tightly as she fought that deep seated, injured-animal side of herself, refusing to bolt.

Choose wrong this time and she stood to lose one more time, but this time there would be no blaming her mother, sister, Michael, Lena, or anyone else.

It would be her fault, pure and simple.

"No," she whispered at last, her heart barely seem to beat as the fear threatened to choke the life out of her. It took every last bit of strength, but she took a step back, reaching behind herself to blindly grab the support rail even as she punched a floor button with her other hand. A beat, then the doors slid closed again, and the elevator lurched upward.

* * * * * * *

Torn between the waiting police officer and the desire to chase after his niece, Jack momentarily stood frozen.

"I’m sure she’ll be all right, sir," Lyman offered sympathetically, alert enough to realize he’d intruded, no matter how unintentionally.

Jack nodded, still distracted, his thoughts with Bianca. He shouldn’t have told her. It was too much.

"I think she’s stronger than you realize," Lyman broke in as if sensing the direction of his superior’s thoughts. He couldn’t help but remember the girl’s presence at the impound lot. It had to be hell to be so in love with someone everyone you knew blamed for all the evils in the world.

Another nod followed by a heavy sigh. "Yeah," Jack admitted. "I just hate that she has to be," he croaked.

Lyman nodded. "Do want me to call in more people to help with the search?" he questioned, reminding Jack of their reason for being there.

Too late to bother trying to follow Bianca now. Jack forced himself to concentrate on the problem at hand. It was the only thing he could do for the girl. "Yeah," he responded huskily. "Get in as many people as you can." They went over a few more issues, then the officer hurried off, and Jack headed back toward Lena’s room, hoping to speak to Maria Grey. The doctor was nowhere to be found, and Paulina Kundera still sat in the waiting room chair, her head down, one hand shielding her face. She looked like holy hell, and he could hardly blame her. In her shoes, he’d have been ready to tear the place down along with anyone he felt was out to hurt his child. As much as he would have liked to offer his sympathies and promises that he’d do everything in his power to find Lena, it seemed unlikely his presence would be much more welcome than his niece’s. Better to just leave the woman alone.

Stepping away, he found a phone at the nurse’s station and dialed Kendall’s cell number from memory, hoping she might have heard from Bianca. No answer. Either it was off or she hadn’t heard it. He tried Bianca’s number. No answer there either. A quick call to Erica’s number got her voice mail, and he left a message letting her know he would probably run late, though no mention as to why. Wonderful. What a time for everyone to stop answering the phone.

He was still debating trying another number or two in hopes of tracking Bianca down when he realized he wasn’t alone. A slow pivot brought him around until he met dark eyes watching him assessingly. Irina....

He suddenly realized he had no idea what her last name was. He’d been thinking of her as Kundera, but given her son, that seemed unlikely. She hadn’t been one to volunteer any information, so what little he knew seemed more by accident than design. Or perhaps he knew so little by design, he mused as he noted her shuttered expression. Not a woman who wore her emotions on her sleeve---unless she chose to.

Arms folded across her chest, she nodded in the direction she’d last seen Bianca headed. "Is she gone?"

He nodded, in no mood to discuss just how much he’d had to tell his niece to get her to leave, and resenting the need to tell her anything at all. "She understands the situation now," he said, keeping his voice as neutral as possible. No matter his personal feelings, it was no time to make an enemy of this woman. Massaging the back of his neck, he made an effort at a peace offering. "Thank you for your help," he added, "before...when your mother...well, you helped keep the situation from spiraling out of control."

"I wasn’t helping you," Irina muttered through an exhausted sigh, and ran her hair back from her brow.

It was, Jackson thought as he watched the gesture, more than a little distracting to watch someone who looked so much like Lena, even down to small gestures, yet was more his contemporary than his niece’s, and who loathed them all every bit as much as Lena loved Bianca. "I’m still grateful," he told her.

"Don’t be," Irina told him with quiet bitterness. "The last thing any of us needed was the explosion my mother was well on her way to." She gnawed absently on a thumbnail, her expression momentarily distant.

Uncomfortable, Jack stuffed his hands in his pockets just to have something to do with them. "Well, I’m grateful to you for interceding." Remembering how his niece had taken the news about Lena’s attempt to take her own life, he felt the need to make certain the Polish woman’s family understood that she hadn’t abandoned Lena. "And I want you to know that Bianca didn’t know about Lena’s suicide attempt. She was in bad shape at the time...because of...the attack...and Lena and Bianca’s sister kept it from her."

The faintest narrowing of dark eyes was the only sign that Irina had heard him.

There was something about that all-seeing gaze and her resemblance to his niece’s lover that made Jack feel the need to explain more than might have been entirely wise. "They were trying to protect her. After what happened...what she went through...they thought it was for the best." He looked down for a moment, struggling to clarify his thoughts. "What I’m trying to say," he said when he looked up again, "is that I think you’re wrong to block her out of helping Lena if she can. She cares for your sister," he glanced away, not entirely comfortable with the discovery of just how involved his niece still was, "more than I realized."

"You care very much for your niece," Irina observed.

"The same way I’m sure you care very much for your family." Maybe it was possible to work this all out in a civilized fashion.

Irina didn’t immediately answer, her gaze becoming distant again. "I care that this situation be dealt with properly," she responded when she finally spoke, the answer seeming oddly formal to him. "And your niece isn’t part of that."

He tensed at the finality in her tone. "Bianca’s an adult...so’s Lena," he pointed out. "They have the right to decide that."

Brown eyes flashed, giving him a brief view of some hidden core of emotion he had no way of understanding. "Lena may already be dead," she snapped back, her voice low, but hard enough to make him flinch.

Jack shook his head, denying that possibility. God, it would destroy Bianca, and leave him feeling like he’d failed her one more time. "We’ll find her...alive," he swore, but Irina shook her head.

"Don’t make promises you may not be able to keep," she warned him. Her gaze slid away from his but not before he caught a glimpse of deep and private emotions too complicated for him to read.

"Your mother---" he began, but Irina cut him off.

"Fears for the loss of her meal ticket." Given the gentle way she’d handled the older woman, the bitter remark caught Jack by surprise and he pulled up short, staring dumbfounded. She abruptly turned away, hands latching together at the small of her back with enough strength to leave her white knuckled.

"That’s a harsh assessment," he ground out at last. He didn’t know Paulina Kundera, but from what he’d seen she genuinely loved her daughter, and was incredibly torn up over what had happened to her.

A soft humorless laugh was her initial answer. "But an honest one."

"You sound like you hate her," Jack exhaled, so shocked by what he was hearing that he didn’t bother to try and hide his response.

"My mother betrayed my father’s ideals, her friends, her neighbors, even her own family," Irina whispered, her voice soft and tight, the words ground out a syllable at a time. "And she raised a child to play the same games." A muscle pulsed in the Polish woman’s jaw as she ground her molars together. She turned to face the DA. "I will do what I can in this situation...because it’s my responsibility...but the best thing would be---" She abruptly stopped, seeming to catch herself. Her hand rose, fluttering near her temple, and she abruptly turned away, shoulders heaving as though she was fighting to catch her breath. "The kindest thing," she began again, her voice becoming inhumanly cold, "for Lena would be if she never regains her memory and gets as far from this city...and my mother as humanly possible." Her head came up, and Jack tracked the line of her gaze down the corridor to where Paulina Kundera was still seated, looking grey and haggard beyond her years while Niko crouched down in front of her apparently offering some measure of comfort.

Jack could only stare. "Your mother loves Lena," he said at last, his confusion plain to hear.

"Yes," Irina murmured distantly, "and yet she still allowed her to sell herself to Michael Cambias in order to save her own skin." There was no mistaking the soft undercurrent of contempt in her voice.

Jack tensed. "Are you saying that she knew?" he asked, the question coming out disjointed. He’d always assumed the Paulina Kundera had been unaware of Lena’s situation until well after it had begun.

Irina turned again, her expression a reserved mask designed to hide whatever she was thinking and feeling from the world. "Yes," she said simply. She turned to stare at her mother again, muttering something under her breath in what he assumed was Polish. "She knew...and did what was necessary to save herself...or more correctly, manipulated Lena into doing it."

Jack didn’t know what to think. The woman’s anger was palpable. It might have been hidden before, but it was inescapable now. "You must love your sister a great deal to be here now," he said at last, trying to make some sense of the situation.

"I barely know Lena," Irina informed him. "She’d only just been born when I left Poland for good."

Somehow things just kept making less and less sense. A beat and then Jack asked, "Then why are you here?"

She turned to face him, her mouth twisting into an ironic smile. "A debt, I suppose...or perhaps a duty." She shrugged. "Love my mother or hate her, she’s still my mother. When she called I couldn’t say no...and I suppose I thought my son should meet his...grandmother..." She massaged her temple slowly. "Or perhaps I just hoped his presence would make this easier," she mused aloud. She glanced at the young man again, her expression softening for the first time since their conversation had begun. "He has a good heart."

"I’m sure he does," Jack agreed. From what he’d seen the kid had been nothing but kind and supportive. "But he’s not necessarily the only one."

Irina suddenly shook her head, looking away and straightening her shoulders, giving him the distinct sense that she regretted dropping of her emotional walls for even a moment, and was busy putting them back in place. Hiding the truth from him, Jack wondered, or herself?

"For all our sakes, keep your niece away from all of us," she whispered at last and started to walk away.

"Why?" Jack demanded, resenting the imperious orders.

Irina did a slow turn, assessing him with eyes that saw too much. "You really have no idea," she said on a surprised note, and he had the sense she was speaking more to herself than him. "Because Mr. District Attorney," she explained after a beat, "your niece plays dangerous games with people’s emotions," the words were low, intended for his ears alone, her soft but pronounced accent turning her voice into a low purr that sent unwanted shivers down his spine, "and I don’t think she’s anywhere near ready to deal with the consequences."

Bristling, Jack ignored any response other than anger as he snapped, "Bianca’s not the one who’s played emotional games in all of this."

His naivete earned him an indulgently mocking smile. "I’m sure you believe that," Irina assured him in a way that made Jack feel like a slightly slow six year-old being patted on the head for finally learning how to tie his shoelaces.

He took a step forward, not towering over her, but tall enough that most women would have regarded him as imposing.

She never batted an eyelash, simply peered up at him with that same faint, mocking smile.

"If you think you know something," he growled, "I suggest you just say it."

Still not cringing, she shrugged. "I’m afraid it’s not my secret to tell." And then any trace of a smile fell away, her expression becoming very serious as she continued, "Understand something, I have nothing but compassion for your niece, but she’s in over her head." She paused just long enough to take a breath, though he had the sense that her mind was racing as she hunted for a way to say just enough and not too much. "She sees only what she wants to and doesn’t understand that we all---all---have our demons...those things we cannot forget...and cannot forgive..." Another short, thoughtful pause. "Lena is no exception to that rule and she’s smarter, better educated, and far more experienced than your niece. If pushed too far, I fear she’ll use everything she’s learned to make us all pay." She took a step back, straightening herself and regaining some measure of momentarily lost composure. "Better the girl just stay away."

"You’re afraid of her," he exhaled almost inaudibly as the truth hit him with the force of a baseball bat.

"Your niece?" Irina scoffed. "Don’t be ridiculous."

"Lena," he corrected.

No laughter or mocking smiles this time. Irina looked like she wanted to reply, even opened her mouth, but words wouldn’t come for a long moment. Finally, she shook her head in an effort to dismiss the charge. "I respect her...the way a mongoose respects a cobra."

Jack felt the need to defend his niece’s former lover. "Whatever her past mistakes, she’s tried to make up for them." He’d seen how hard Lena had struggled to change her life. She might have been the villainess of the piece once, but nothing was that simple now. "She’s not the same person she was when she worked for Cambias."

A half smile twisted full lips. "Well, she’s certainly not right now," Irina drawled, "but if she gets her memory back, don’t be so certain the fangs won’t come out."

"Maybe she’s not the one with the fangs," Jack shot back accusingly, her callous attitude bothering him. He fully expected Irina to get angry, but he wasn’t prepared for the hurt that flittered through dark eyes before it was hidden behind an impassive mask.

A moment passed while she regained enough control to speak. "If you want the truth," she said at last, her tone utterly serious and without even a hint of mockery, "she is more sinned again than sinning, but what you don’t understand," she continued, "is that only makes her more dangerous...because it will serve as justification for the havoc she is more than capable of wreaking should she see fit." She glanced away for the briefest second. "And if that happens, you’ll all wish she’d died in that car accident," she said with almost desperate intensity. And then suddenly, she pulled back a step, her movements unsteady for the first time as she spun away.

"And do you already?" Jack demanded before she could escape.

The Polish woman froze, one hand coming up and fluttering near her temple. A moment and then she half turned, staring over her shoulder at him with eyes that showed a pain he had no way of understanding. "Don’t say such a thing," she whispered, her voice sounding like a smoker’s throat rasp though an oddly pleading note underlaid the words.

Pushing aside any inclinations toward guilt brought on by the hurt he could see in her expression, Jack refused to back down. "Why not?" he ground out.

She had no answer, and her gaze broke from his. She turned away, started to leave, then froze, her voice stiff and more accented than usual. "I may have wished she’d never been born," she told him, "but I have never wished her dead...never," she added more forcefully as she threw a hard glare over her shoulder, momentarily pinning him in place.

For a moment he thought she was going to say more, but finally she just shook her head and hurried away, leaving Jack to stare after her, frustrated by the sense that there was far more going on than he knew, and everyone knew the rules of engagement but him. He was still standing there like that when Maria Grey shoved a cup of coffee into his hand.

"Don’t try to figure it out," the doctor advised, her tone making it clear she’d seen and heard at least some of the exchange. "It’ll just give you a headache."

Jack peered at her curiously, his questions implicit in his expression. "Care to explain?"

Maria shrugged. "It’s just very strange," she told him. "The sister and the nephew...they’re here all the time, but they’ve never visited Lena. In fact, she doesn’t even know they’re here, and I have firm orders not to tell her. And her mother? That’s a woman with secrets." She took a sip of coffee. "I swear it’s like mystery is genetically bred into the whole brood."

Jack glanced at her, then back down the hall where Irina was now sitting with her mother. Mystery bred in? He could almost believe it. "She’s afraid," he said very softly, still in shock over the discovery. "Of Lena," he added, his voice dropping another notch. "And Bianca." Lost in the jumble of discoveries and still struggling to piece them together, he was really musing out loud, barely even aware he had an audience. "And what might happen if they...." Afraid he’d said too much, he trailed off and tried again. "She thinks Bianca’s playing with Lena’s emotions somehow."

Maria didn’t say a word. No agreement, but no denial either, and she suddenly found the contents of her coffee cup intensely fascinating.

"It’s crazy," Jack continued, too absorbed with his own thoughts to have even an inkling of Maria’s discomfort. "How could she think that?" His frown deepened. Bianca had been the victim in all of it; first Lena’s schemes and then Michael’s attack. But given the way the relationship had ended, perhaps the Polish woman hadn’t seen it that way. "Maybe Lena said something...because of the breakup," he muttered, not comfortable that explanation, but unable to come up with anything else that made any sense. Lena wouldn’t be the first discarded lover to vent over the unfairness of it all.

"Lena may have cried on her mother’s shoulder, but I don’t think she’d say anything against Bianca," Maria felt the need to defend her patient. It was clear that Lena told her mother something of her situation when she had no one else she could talk to, but instinct told the doctor that Paulina’s anger was largely a product of her own take on the situation and not her daughter’s words.

Uncertain why she’d have any opinion either way, Jack glanced at her, his expression questioning.

"She was my patient after the first suicide attempt," she reminded him, trying to draw attention away from what she might know about the current situation. As far as she knew Jack was unaware of Bianca’s late night visits---not to mention the likelihood that considerably more had been going on between the two women for quite some time---and she really didn’t want him pushing for answers she had no business giving. "She never expressed any anger at anyone but herself...none. The only thing I saw Lena worried about was protecting Bianca." She paused for a moment as she remembered some of the things the Polish woman had said during their first meeting. "Frankly," she said at last, "I think she thought that’s what she was doing...that her death would somehow make up for what happened."

That comment pulled Jack up short. "That’s the last thing that would help," he muttered, thinking of his niece’s agitation over her former lover’s condition. Even now Bianca wasn’t as stable as he would have liked. Had Lena succeeded in her suicide attempt when all hell was breaking loose, he couldn’t imagine what might have happened and didn’t want to.

"I know," Maria allowed, "but grief can make people crazy." She paused long enough to take a breath and gather her thoughts before continuing, "Which is why I don’t think you should pay much attention to anything Lena’s family says. They’re too upset right now to be very rational." She didn’t really believe that was the explanation, particularly where Irina was concerned. The woman was strung tight, but completely in control. "They need a villain...and Bianca fits the role...but it doesn’t mean anything." The last thing any of them needed was for Jackson Montgomery to decide to dig into what was going on. Maria might not think much of all the lying going on, but she doubted any good would come of sudden a dose of the complete truth either. That was the sort of medicine likely to kill the patient.

Jack nodded. Maria was right. He was reading too much into Irina’s comments at a time when she was incredibly stressed. "Good point," he murmured, reaching up to massage the back of his neck. "It’s just frustrating," he admitted. "I feel like there are things I don’t know...like people are keeping secrets." And keeping secrets had already caused them all too much pain.

Despite any temptation to the contrary, Maria held her tongue. Sympathy for his situation or no, she had no right to breach her patient’s confidentiality. "Everyone’s emotions are ramped up right now," she said when she finally spoke. "But what we really need to concentrate on is finding Lena. That’ll do more good for everyone than anything else."

Reminded of the stakes, Jack nodded, putting everything else aside. "Right," he exhaled, slightly ashamed of himself for being distracted from his real reason for being there. "I should probably get downstairs and see if they’ve found anything on the security tapes."

He was just turning to leave when Sean Lyman came barreling around a nearby corner. He was breathing harder than normal and had a two-way radio in hand. "Sir, security just notified me. They spotted a woman on one of the parking lot cameras that might have been Ms. Kundera. Looks like she left through the west entrance no more than a half hour ago. She was on foot, and it doesn’t look like she caught a cab."

Jack and Maria traded relieved looks. With any luck everything was going to be all right. "I want every officer canvassing the area," Jack told Lyman, "but don’t approach her unless necessary and let me know the instant she’s spotted." He glanced at Maria again who nodded in agreement. "She’s undoubtedly very upset, and so we need to handle her with kid gloves." He turned a serious look Maria’s direction. "I’ll send someone up with a radio...so we can notify you if you’re needed."

She nodded her understanding. "Good luck," she breathed, offering an encouraging smile as the two men turned and hurried out. "Let this come out well," she prayed quietly, though she didn’t have a good feeling. Not a good feeling at all.

* * * * * *

Begin Part 22

With nowhere she was welcome, but desperate to stay close, Bianca ducked the nurses and orderlies prowling the corridors in search of her missing lover until she spotted the staff elevator. It took some stealth since she was terrified that if seen, they might force her to leave, but finally she slipped inside when no one was looking, and a short time later stepped out onto the roof of the hospital. A ragged sigh escaped her lips and she tipped her head back to absorb the cool breeze, mentally envision it washing her problems away. If only it were that simple. Only it wasn’t because Lena was out there somewhere, hurting and scared, undoubtedly ashamed, and maybe on the verge of doing something stupid. "She’ll be okay," she whispered to herself. She had to be. "She’ll be okay," she repeated more forcefully in an effort to push back the horrific scenarios playing in her head.

Shaking off the encroaching terror with conscious effort, she took a step forward, her heart twisting with remembered emotion as she envisioned the moments they’d shared only a few feet from where she now stood. Was it only the night before? Suddenly seemed like a lifetime ago. "She’ll be okay," she breathed a little more desperately, fighting to keep her head clear and the panic under control.

Only despite her best efforts, she couldn’t forget what her uncle had told her. Lena had tried to kill herself, had deliberately taken poison, maybe tried to crash her car, and even now might be hurting herself somehow. So much for staving off panic. Terror settled in the pit of her stomach like a two-ton chunk of lead that threatened to drag her down through the floor.

"She’ll be okay," Bianca said again, turning the words into a mantra and clinging to them with fierce passion.

Nails digging into her palms, she focused on her memories of the night before, of shared, low words that carried the weight of promises, gentle caresses, the feel of that elegant body cradled against her own, the velvety press of warm lips, and the back and forth rhythm of their synchronized breathing.

Lena had to remember those moments too, wherever she was. She had to. She had to know there were people who cared for her---

But people had cared for her before, and she’d still taken poison. The thought occurred too quickly to be deflected. Running scared, confused, thinking the worst, who couldn’t be pushed to---

An unwanted image of her lover’s body, bloody and broken, flashed in Bianca’s head before she could find a way to stop it. Whimpering under the impact, she clenched her fists so tightly her nails threatened to draw blood where they clawed into her palms. She never noticed. The physical pain was a distant sensation, so slight when compared with the emotional agony as to be irrelevant.

She didn’t know what she’d do if Lena didn’t come through this. Just the thought was almost enough to sink her in guilt and rage, both emotions so thick and dark it felt like they congealed the blood in her veins. She wanted to grab her lover and shake her, scream at her and demand to know why the hell she’d do something so stupid, then grab hold and never let go, no matter what anyone said or did.

Including her mother.

Now there was someone Bianca would have preferred to avoid thinking about.

Her mother. Erica Kane had her own unique sense of justice, and Bianca knew all too well just how much she despised Lena. Her mother wasn’t above any number of other cruelties. It would be just like her to blame Lena for their fight. It would give her all the reason she needed to take a bit of revenge on the object of her daughter’s affection. Whoever had given Lena the magazine had been dark haired, cruel, and carrying a grudge. Now there was a description that fit Erica Kane to a tee, and who else fit that desciption? No one that Bianca could think of.

Needing to escape that thought, Bianca hurried forward to the edge of the roof, leaning forward to grip to the low retaining wall that ran around the edge so tightly she half expected the cement to powder under her fingers.

In the parking lot far below the rooftop lights from a pair of squad cars cast constantly shifting red and blue streamers onto the surrounding walls and vehicles, the effect oddly hypnotic. Occasionally Bianca caught a glimpse of human shaped shadows moving among the cars, hunting for Lena, she suspected. Like so many things in her life, it all seemed horribly unreal, like she couldn’t really be standing here, watching them search while she waited to hear if Lena was alive or dead.

She shook herself, consciously struggling to throw off the dark thoughts that threatened to drive her to do something she shouldn’t.

Like go back down to the twelfth floor, and demand to be told what was going on whether Paulina Kundera liked it or not. No, hard as it was to stay away, it was her only real choice. Lena would never forgive her if she upset the older woman any more than she already had. Besides, having so carefully created the illusion that Lena was nothing to her, maybe being up here alone was a fitting punishment for all her mistakes.

Bad thinking. That was definitely an example of the sort of thing her counselor kept lecturing against. Dr. Zimmerman was wont to impress on her that bad events in her life weren’t punishment for some imagined evil she’d done. They were simply bad events. The girl ruffled her hair, trying to force her thoughts onto more positive pathways, but it was harder than hell when she didn’t know what was happening to someone she cared for.

She was still leaning against the wall, watching the scene below and trying to clear her mind when a sound touched her ears. Very small, almost lost in the delicate breeze that played with Bianca’s hair, it was just enough to draw her head around as she searched the unfamiliar landscape of the roof, nerves suddenly on edge. It wasn’t that she was afraid of running across some madman on the PV hospital roof, but her senses had become more acute, her responses more cautious since Michael’s attack. It was, Dr. Zimmerman had assured her, perfectly normal, but somehow it still felt wrong, like she was someone else every time she jumped and her heart accelerated over some tiny sound or movement at the edge of her peripheral vision. She’d always been comfortable in strange places, calm, and remarkably confident even as times in her life when she’d felt like an alien in her own skin. No more. Now she had to fight the urge to panic at every tiny sound no matter how soft or seemingly benign.

Her mouth suddenly dry, she straightened, turning to scan what she could see of the rooftop. Nothing moving. Maybe it was nothing. Just a random city sound.

She was just starting to relax when she heard it again, clearer now that she was listening so carefully.

A tiny, drawn out rasp of moving air with a high pitched undercurrent. She looked around. There was a breeze, but the sound was too soft and irregular to be caused by a whistling wind.

There it was again, delicate and mournful. Definitely not the wind nor anything mechanical. The timbre and rhythm were that of a live thing.

A frightened child? Or perhaps an injured animal?

She took a couple of steps, heard it again---louder now---and followed the tiny whimpers, hunting the shadowed corners of the darkened roof with every step. A narrow ledge ran around the edge of the building, following its shape and occasional jogs perfectly and as she rounded the side of the small elevator housing, she realized there was an additional half story to the building apparently built to house the cooling and heating system.

The whimper came again, soft, feral, and desperate in a way that tore at Bianca’s heart.

And suddenly she knew.

No animal, no matter how badly hurt, could have drawn that visceral response from somewhere deep inside her, and the only child who could have caused such a fiercely protective wave was her own. And he was safe at home.

Desperation drove her now, until she spotted the slender figure she knew had to be close.

She was curled into the smallest ball possible tucked into a narrow corner where ledge butted against the vertical wall that went up to the higher level. Her back was against the wall, knees folded tightly against her chest, arms wrapped around her legs, head down, tiny tremors shaking her entire body. Bianca suddenly realized the rhythm of the tiny sounds matched that of a very small, back and forth rocking motion.

Lena.

In more agony than anyone should ever be in.

And sitting on a ledge more than a dozen stories above the street. A few inches to one side, a moment’s unbalance, or even a hard breeze and it would all be over in moments.

Muscles locked with sheer terror, Bianca fought the urge to simply rush forward and snatch the other woman back from the edge, but all it would take was the slightest mistake and she would achieve what poison and a car accident hadn’t managed. A missed grab or a moment’s panic and Lena would be as dead as if Bianca had put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

Now was not the time to panic or screw anything up. Take it slow, think it through, and for god’s sake, don’t startle the woman on the ledge.

She took a breath and let it out, getting herself under control before carefully edging forward one step. And then another. And another. Each step bringing her a little closer.

Her heart hammering so hard she was amazed Lena hadn’t long since heard her coming, every movement was a torment of taut muscle and terror.

Just a little farther. Just a little—

And then Lena’s chin rose. She moved incredibly slowly, like someone too old, too drugged, or simply too badly beaten to go any faster.

Bianca froze as tear stained, dark eyes slid closed for the briefest second, then opened again, fixing a sad look on her.

A beat. "Go away," Lena said at last, the words dragged out as though it took all of her effort to form them.

Bianca stood frozen for a beat, her brain refusing to process the situation. "Lena, what are you..." she started to speak as she instinctively advanced.

Lena instantly tensed, her position suddenly seeming even more precarious.

Bianca froze.

"Just go," Lena rasped and looked away. "I don’t want you here." Bianca was literally the last person she wanted to see.

Uncertain how to respond and terrified of doing the wrong thing, Bianca struggled to stay calm even as she tried to remember those hours after Michael’s attack when she’d been in this kind of hell. What kind of approach might have reached her then? She didn’t know. Maybe nothing, and that scared the hell out of her. "I know you saw the article," she said at last.

Lena exhaled the tiniest of bitter laughs, the sound bordering on a whimpery cry, but didn’t say anything.

"Why don’t you come down and we’ll talk about it," Bianca suggested, hoping she sounded cool and logical and not as panicked as she felt.

"There’s nothing to talk about," Lena whispered in a hauntingly dead voice, the newly gained knowledge of all the things she’d done burning holes in her heart and mind like still-smoldering coals searing her body from the inside out to leave her a burned-out husk of a human being.

"That’s not true," Bianca said very gently as she eased forward a small step. David had physically dragged her back from the edge of the clinic roof once. Was she strong enough to do the same for Lena? She wasn’t sure and didn’t want to have to find out. "There’s you and I...and the future...our future."

That drew another low, half mad laugh. "That wasn’t real."

Lena was right on the edge, not just physically, but mentally as well. Bianca took another step toward her lover, poised on the balls of her feet in case she needed to move fast. "Remember last night," she coaxed, hoping that bond could bring Lena back to her, "the time we spent up here, how right it felt? How can you say that wasn’t real?"

Dark eyes slid closed, blocking out the younger woman’s tender appeal. "Because none of it was true...just a pretty fairy tale," Lena said in a dead voice. No matter how much she wanted to believe in all of those things---no matter how much she was drawn to the younger woman---she couldn’t believe that Bianca felt anything but loathing for her after everything she’d learned. She didn’t know why the younger woman had seemed so kind, or why she’d said and done the things she had. Maybe her mother was right and it was nothing more than a cruel game. But knowing the truth, she couldn’t imagine any possibility of a shared future, no matter how much part of her craved it. In truth, she couldn’t imagine she had any kind of future at all.

"No---" Bianca insisted almost instantly.

"Don’t lie," the Polish woman bit out in a momentary burst of frustration, then her expression crumpled again as she drew more tightly into herself. "No more lies," she begged, her voice cracking painfully. "I know about the things I did." Her eyes slid away from Bianca, the pain of facing her victim too much to bear. "I know I can’t make up for any of it...but I’m sorry." She shook her head. "I don’t know how I could have...." She trailed off. There were no words sufficient to express the depth of her shame and regret, at least none that she could think of. "I’m sorry," she muttered again.

Another cautious step forward. Bianca took a breath, fighting to keep her head clear. A gentle touch wasn’t working. Lena had lost any trust for what they’d shared. She glanced toward the elevator enclosure, wondering if she should try and get someone else. Maybe Lena’s mother could—

Accurately reading Bianca’s internal debate in that quick glance Lena shook her head. "I won’t be here when you get back," she said very softly, her voice floating sepulchrally on the faint breeze.

Not liking any of the possible interpretations of that comment, Bianca looked at the other woman again, her expression horrified.

Lena saw the way the other woman’s eyes softened and wanted to reassure her, but even she wasn’t quite sure what she was threatening to do. She just knew she couldn’t face any of them. Not her mother or the doctors or any of them. Not now. She just wanted to escape, run away, and be someone else---her eyes flicked to touch on the world far below---but with nowhere to go and no one she trusted, there was a certain dark temptation to seek out the ultimate form of oblivion.

"Listen to me." Bianca sharpened her tone, the words carefully spaced and firmly spoken in her best effort to ape the tone her counselor got when she was desperately trying to imprint something on her young charge.

Lena looked up, but didn’t speak.

At least she was listening now. Bianca took a breath, ignoring her own nerves---no time for her problems now---as she continued, "I know that article said some awful things, but you have to believe me, most of it was lies and distortions...and you’ve done nothing worth the pain you are going through right now...nothing."

Brown eyes refocused on her, momentarily gleaming with hope. God, how Lena wanted to believe the other woman. Anything to take away the horror and shame of what she’d read. And yet there were still too many things she couldn’t forget even though she couldn’t remember them. "But it said I worked for that man---Cambias---that I..." she trailed off, her gorge rising as she fought to breathe. "...that he paid me...to sleep with men...for information so he could steal from them." She desperately wanted Bianca to deny it all, tell her it was nothing more than a nightmare, a lie, a prank, anything to make it go away.

The younger woman paled, her momentary silence and obvious panic all the answer Lena needed.

"Oh god," the words came out through a gasp, as though someone had struck her in the solar plexus just as she started to speak. A fresh wave of tears seared her eyes and she couldn’t breathe. Until that very moment, she’d held onto some tiny core of hope that it was all some kind of lie, but Bianca’s response made it obvious it wasn’t. In an instant, it all became real, the horror all the more intense because of her overwhelming attraction to the other woman. Her stomach rolling, throat so tight it felt like fingers squeezing the life from her, she buried her face in her upthrust knees, clinging tightly, her whole body randomly convulsing as she fought not to give way to harsh sobs.

The sudden brush of a hand against her upper arm caught Lena by surprise and she jerked back, nearly upending herself, her balance wavering violently even as she cried out, "Don’t touch me!" Bianca leapt back and Lena experienced a lightheaded loss of equilibrium followed by a panicky sense of falling. For the briefest moment, she expected to topple into a freefall that would carry her all the way to her doom. Then as abruptly as she’d lost her balance, she caught it again and held on. Her heart still thundering in her chest, she looked up. Bianca stood poised on the balls of her feet, ready to leap to her aid, but clearly afraid of making things worse.

Lena didn’t know what to make of the terror she saw in brown eyes. Not a woman eager to see her dead. That very lack of hate made her want to hope, but she knew from experience that hope could be the most dangerous of emotions. When falsely felt, it could lead a body down the worst paths and drive a person mad. Her mother had hoped once, and it had nearly destroyed them all.

"Lena," Bianca croaked, her voice unsteady. She held out a hand still trembling from the terror of seeing her lover nearly fall. "Please let me help you down off that ledge."

Lena tucked her hands more tightly around her body, refusing the proffered hand with a sharp headshake, afraid that she would lose all control if they made even the slightest contact. She looked away, pressing her cheek firmly against her knees, unable or unwilling to trust the other woman. She wanted to, but she couldn’t forget.... "Why didn’t you tell me the truth?" she whispered through thick tears. "Why did you let me think I meant something to you?" That was the worst part; believing she was someone with friends and people who cared for her, a lover who couldn’t stand the thought of losing her, only to discover it was all a lie.

"You mean a great deal to me," Bianca assured her, crouching down as she eased forward ever so slightly. "Please believe that if you can’t believe anything else."

It was so tempting to just surrender to that sweet promise, but Lena couldn’t afford the risk. "My mother said you were just using me," She looked up through clear brown eyes. "That you wanted me to love you so you could break my heart." That thought was almost worse than the things she’d read in that article.

"That’s not true," Bianca swore as she gained a few more inches by sliding forward to one knee.

"No one would blame you...not after the things I’ve done." Unable to bear the weight of guilt any longer, Lena looked away.

"Lena...please look at me," Bianca begged. One beat passed and then another and another while she patiently waited until brown eyes finally swung her way. "I would never...never," she said a second time with more emphasis, "want to see you hurt."

"Why not?" Lena asked. "I deserve---"

"Listen to me," Bianca broke in sharply. She edged forward a few more inches. Almost there. "Your mother was wrong...and so was that article. You and I are the only ones who know truth about what we are to each other."

Lena was listening to her now, unable to fight the thing between them, hope holding sway in spite of her best efforts. "But I worked for that man. Don’t deny it, I could see it in your eyes."

Bianca’s throat bobbed as she swallowed hard and took a brief second to gather her thoughts. "Yes," she said at last, the words coming haltingly, "you worked for Michael Cambias..." she ignored the stab of pain caused by just saying his name, "...and you came here to help him steal from my mother’s company."

Looking away, Lena trembled as though she’d taken a vicious blow to the body and Bianca flinched right along with her.

"Then I did come here to seduce you." The barely audible words were full of sick shame, with an undercurrent of anger. "To use you...to make money."

Shaking her head desperately, Bianca reached out without thinking, hooking Lena’s chin to bring her head back around, her voice sharp and hard. "No," she insisted.

Caught and held by something in the younger woman’s demeanor, the Polish woman didn’t pull away this time, but instead sat frozen.

"Michael wanted you to do that," Bianca admitted, then leaned a little closer, her voice dropping low as she swore intently, "but you never did...never." Suddenly it was just as important to her as it was to her lover to hear and believe that simple fact. Whatever Lena’s crimes, Bianca had never been the target.

"Even if that’s true, I still came to steal," Lena reminded Bianca, even as she tipped her head to avoid contact with the hand that moved as if to stroke her cheek, implicitly rejecting the offer of a safe haven. She couldn’t believe anyone could be so forgiving as to overlook the things she’d done and couldn’t trust no matter how much she wanted to.

"It wasn’t that simple," Bianca disagreed, buying a moment’s time while she searched for a way to explain the past in way that wouldn’t push Lena off the ledge. "You were desperate for money...for your mother," she began at last, drawing a little closer as she spoke.

A hint of a frown creasing her brow, Lena stared at Bianca, while the girl used the distraction to reach across Lena, almost but not quite touching, ready to grab her shoulders if need be.

"And Michael used that against you." Carefully holding Lena’s gaze, Bianca moved her other hand so that it was hanging in the air near her lover’s waist. Once again nearly touching but not quite.

Almost there.

"And when you tried to defy him to protect me..." She just needed to keep talking until she could get Lena down, or at least until she was angled so any loss of balance would throw her away from the long drop to the ground. "...Michael threatened your mother if you didn’t do what he wanted."

In one way it was the sort of explanation Lena had dreamed of hearing, one which almost made sense of her actions and made them forgivable. At the same time, it meant some kind of threat hung over the head of the only family she had left. Intending to demand more information, she turned toward Bianca, a dozen unspoken questions already forming in her head.

Bianca saw the fear and longing to believe in dark eyes even as Lena leaned toward her. There. The angle was right and she took her chance, acting before her lover had time to speak. Her hands were already in place and her grab was hard and a little rough, but she couldn’t risk losing her grip at the wrong moment, not when she instinctively knew how her lover would react when hauled off the ledge. Badly.

Which she did right on cue, panic instantly sweeping over her as she was unexpectedly grabbed and hauled off the low brick wall. Already emotionally on edge, Lena reacted like a wild thing betrayed, striking out and resisting the pull of slender hands and surprisingly strong arms.

Bianca couldn’t afford to allow the fight to continue. Too much chance of Lena being injured in the struggle, or worse, escaping her hold and doing a nose dive over the side of the building in her panic. Teeth gritted, the girl braced herself and kicked off, throwing them both a few feet from certain doom. Twisting with the momentum she hit the roof on her shoulder, shielding her lover from the worst of the impact.

It was still enough to drive a grunting shriek of pain from Lena’s lungs as badly bruised ribs were jarred and broken bones nearly knocked out of their carefully constructed alignment. Bright lights exploding behind her eyelids, her only coherent thought was that Bianca had lied, her sweet words of absolution nothing but a trick. Her struggles were automatic, mindless, and fierce, the reaction of a woman who’d been betrayed too many times to react calmly to what looked like one more lie. Even without the memories of Michael Cambias, Lena Kundera had seen too many evils in her life to accept some sins.

Mindless with rage and pain, Lena drove the elbow of her injured arm into Bianca’s midsection, strangely gratified by the younger woman’s answering grunt and sudden spasm.

Left gasping for air, Bianca momentarily lost her grip on the desperately squirming woman and Lena twisted free in a blink. Her only aim to escape, she never realized that her mad scrambles were taking her straight toward the edge of the building.

But Bianca did. "No!" She rolled to one knee and dove after her lover, tackling her from behind. "No, no, no," she panted near Lena’s ear as she got an arm around her waist and hauled her back from the edge.

"Let me go!" Lena was all angry, writhing flesh, nearly impossible to hang onto, using every ounce of her waning strength, her muscles trembling with the effort required to fight, her breath coming in harsh, panting gasps.

"No!" Bianca ground out through clenched teeth. Sharp elbows caught her in the ribs, but she ignored the pain. If she lost her grip, Lena was likely to wind up a grease spot on the pavement far below. And if that happened, Bianca knew she might as well just leap right over after her. Another sharp shot to the ribs and a crashing impact between Bianca’s jaw and the back of Lena’s head left them both seeing stars. "Dammit, Lena," the girl grunted as she grabbed for flailing hands. She clamped her fingers around a delicate wrist and jerked, yanking it into the taller woman’s body with enough force to drive the air from her lungs, "stop fighting me."

A sharp imprecation in a language Bianca didn’t recognize heralded a new wave of struggles so desperate she knew she couldn’t hold on long. She had to do something. Quickly. Lena’s other hand swept by, the metal clasps on the brace catching the light. Without thinking, the girl grabbed for the passing limb, clamping down so hard the metal edges of the brace indented the meat of her palm and the canvas rasped against her skin.

And then suddenly Lena wasn’t struggling anymore. Instead she fell back against Bianca, a sharp gasp driven from her lungs as she pushed frantically at the hand wrapped around the shattered joint, small keening cries escaping her lips. Words, high pitched and pleading reached the girl’s ears in what she decided had to be Polish, followed by English so broken it barely sounded like Lena. "Please...let...go...."

It took the girl an extra second to parse the heavily accented words and realize what she’d done and when she did she was horrified. Lena twisted and Bianca could almost hear the grinding of shattered bone where she gripped the Polish woman’s wrist. "Oh god," the words escaped her lips in an appalled blast of sound, as she let go of the damaged limb. Even as she let go, she stretched her arm across Lena’s shoulders to maintain some kind of hold, half afraid the other woman might still make a bid to escape.

Only Lena wasn’t up to going anywhere. As her arm was released, she pulled it against her body, curling into a tight ball, small, wounded whimpers the only sound she was capable of making.

"Oh god, Lena, I’m sorry," Bianca breathed in horror, her hold going from restraining to soothing in an instant. "I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just..." She clutched the woman in her arms a little tighter, though she was careful not to disturb her injured limb this time. As she held Lena close the girl’s gaze rose to lock on the nearby ledge, a shiver running over her skin when she realized just how close they were.

Only a few more feet and it would have all been over.

The shiver turned to a shudder until Bianca was trembling almost as violently as the women in her arms. "I’m sorry," she breathed again, though Lena showed no sign of hearing her.

Her lover was curled around her broken arm, rocking back and forth ever so slightly, her eyes squeezed shut, mouth pursed into a line of agony. Lena took in a deep breath and let it out on a ragged gasp that quickly turned into spasmodic shudders. Her teeth were clenched so tightly Bianca could see the ripple of muscle at the jawline and her throat muscles bobbled unsteadily. She was fighting it, trying to maintain some semblance of control and failing miserably. A single silver tear escaped the trap of tightly shut eyes and then another and another. "No." The word came as a tiny, near inaudible gasp as she wrapped her arms around her midsection. She rocked one shoulder as if to pull away from the woman at her back, but Bianca refused to let go.

"Lena, please stop struggling before you’re hurt," Bianca begged.

That brought a sharp bark of dark laughter, and then suddenly Lena was rocking again, the tears that had started with the blast of pain fast gaining momentum. Bianca could almost hear the snap as something inside of her lover shattered and within moments, the slow trickle of moisture had turned to harsh sobs.

At some level, Bianca wanted to rail at her lover, scream and demand to know how she could risk her life, but faced with a woman coming apart at the seams, she just gathered her close, petting her hair soothingly and whispering comforting nonsense the same way she would have with Tyler if he had a bad nightmare. There would be time for recriminations later. "It’s gonna be okay," she breathed over and over. "You’re safe...you’re all right." The words had less meaning than her tone as she gently rocked her lover, crooning softly and petting her hair, gratified by the way Lena finally sagged against her and turned her face into Bianca’s shoulder.

By the time Lena finally still in her arms and her breathing became slow and steady, Bianca had little sense of how long they’d been there. Her position wasn’t conducive to checking her watch, but the moon had shifted several degrees, and the air was fast turning cold. Not the time of year where staying outside much longer was a good idea for a woman in hospital scrubs and bare feet, especially after a recent accident. "Lena," she whispered gently, "Lena," she said again more sharply when there was no immediate reply.

A beat and then the Polish woman tensed fractionally and started to pull away.

Bianca tightened her hold.

"Let go," Lena muttered without looking at her.

"No." Not a chance after what had just happened.

"Why not?" Lena demanded bitterly as she tried again to shrug free of the other woman’s hold. Suddenly feeling profoundly embarrassed, she just wanted to be left alone. She needed space to think. Nothing made sense anymore and her tie to Bianca was the most confusing part of the whole sorry mess.

"Because I’m afraid of what you might do," Bianca admitted, her own strain showing in the way her voice creaked tremulously.

Shaking her head, Lena couldn’t contain a tiny, near hysterical burst of sound that was somewhere between laughter and tears. "It doesn’t matter."

"Doesn’t...matter?" Bianca repeated as though she couldn’t quite believe she’d heard right. Something inside of her twisted, the anger at those simple words swelling and washing over he like a vicious undertow threatening to drag her under, reminding her once again of what her uncle had told her. "We’re at least fifteen stories up," she snapped. "You were sitting on that ledge...and then trying to..." she paused, uncertain exactly what Lena had been trying to do, simply escape or find oblivion in the peace of freefall. She couldn’t deal with the possibilities so she didn’t even try, just launched into another, more direct, if equally painful line of thought. Still, sometimes it’s easier to deal with results than motivations. "You could have been killed." It was all catching up with the girl. Not just the scene she’d stumbled onto, but everything. Her lover had nearly killed herself, then again nearly died in a car accident, and both times she’d been everywhere but where Lena needed her to be. And now tonight, she’d nearly had to watch it happen. And as angry as she was at herself, she was twice as angry at her lover. It wasn’t worth dying for.

She. Wasn’t. Worth. Dying. For.

And yet Lena had been ready to do so. Furiously angry and desperately terrified at the same time, she tightened her hold still more, ignoring the hand that pushed weakly at her restraining arm. Bianca didn’t want that kind of responsibility on her shoulders. She’d already proven she couldn’t handle it and Lena had no business asking it of her.

Only she hadn’t asked, hadn’t said a word, had in fact been ready to simply crawl away and silently die with no one the wiser.

Which only made Bianca angrier and guiltier. Burying her face in chestnut hair, she fought a harsh sob without success and her body shook under its impact. "I could have lost you forever."

"Why would you care?" Lena rasped.

Bianca flinched. "We were lovers," she reminded the other woman.

Lena shook her head violently, remembering too late her mother’s warnings about this woman. Much as she wanted to, she couldn’t afford to trust. "You’re trying to trick me---" she gasped, fighting the urge to curl even more tightly around her broken arm, the agony still vicious enough to make it hard to think.

"No," Bianca shot back, her voice thick with tears. "I wouldn’t---"

"Then why did you lie to me?" Lena exploded. She waved her uninjured hand in a loose gesture, indicating the roof’s edge where she thought they’d shared so much only to have it all blow up in her face. Another ragged sob shook her frame, the world a watery blur, her mind still spinning with all the things she’d read, none of it feeling real. And yet there had been the pictures: herself, and the two men she’d been in league with, one of them so perverse as to take a photo while they were in bed together. "Why didn’t you tell me the truth?" During those moments on the roof, she’d felt so safe in Bianca’s arms, so lost in her eyes, so touched by her voice, and so taken with her kisses.

Only it was all a lie. Maybe just an attempt to set her up for the massive free-fall she was caught in now. Just like her mother had warned her. Painful as the truth was, she might have been able to believe Bianca had forgiven her if she hadn’t lied, but now...

Now how could she believe anything the other woman told her? Lena rubbed at the random flow of tears heating her cheeks. "Why did you let me find out by reading some damn magazine article?" she whispered again, the words accusing.

Bianca froze. There was no good way to answer without offering explanations she had no intention of giving. Her mind racing as she hunted for an answer, she pressed her face deeper into the comforting warmth of soft hair, breathing in the scent of her lover’s body, comforted by the solidity of her frame even if it was frailer than usual. "It never occurred to me that anyone would be so cruel as to give you that article" she whispered at last. No matter what lies had been told or what truths not told, that much was true. Still holding Lena tightly, she gentled her grip, lifting a hand to tenderly stroke fluttery hair, the position strangely reminiscent of more innocent intimacies. "I didn’t tell you about what happened because I was trying to protect you. Maria was afraid any stress might trigger more convulsions...and there was no easy way to tell you about what happened. It was just too risky." Bianca nuzzled Lena’s cheek, hot tears suddenly burning her eyes, shock and adrenaline leaving her nearly incoherent. "And I admit it...it was easier to wipe the slate clean...to see you free of the guilt."

Lena’s quieted, signaling that she was listening in spite of herself, or maybe she was just so exhausted she had nothing left with which to fight.

Bianca risked pressed a soft kiss to her lover’s temple. "We were putting things back together," she assured the other woman. "I didn’t lie about that. I’m not saying it was easy...but we had so much...and neither of us wanted to throw it away."

A tiny sound escaped Lena’s lips.

Bianca couldn’t tell what it meant, so she simply hoped for the best and continued. "Last night," she murmured, nuzzling Lena’s ear, her breath heating velvety skin, "I know you felt it too...that magic." She stroked a rounded cheek with the pad of her thumb, her touch incredibly tender. "We both wanted it...and I just needed to be here for you...that’s all. I wasn’t trying to hurt you...I wouldn’t. God, Lena, I...you have no idea how much you mean to me." Even as the words left Bianca’s mouth, a tiny voice whispered in her ear, taunting her with the fact that Lena couldn’t have known, not when she’d been so careful never to tell her. She pushed it ruthlessly aside. Doubts weren’t a luxury she could afford. "I was just trying to do what was best for you," she said at last.

Lena wanted to believe, wanted it so badly she could taste it. "But that man---"

"No," Bianca snarled, rage glittering in her eyes for a brief second before she got it under control. Michael had already too damn much from her. She wasn’t going to let him have one more thing. "I told you, he forced you to do the things you did...threatened your mother’s life...and even then, once your mother was safe, you turned on him and gave evidence to the police." It was almost the truth.

"But---"

Bianca didn’t let her get any farther. "You had no choice. Yes, I was angry at first, but once I understood what you’d been through, I realized you couldn’t have done anything else." That much was true. A year of making nothing but wrong decisions had taught her that sometimes there was no right path, and a person just had to get through life any way they could.

The hope in dark eyes was cautious, but it was real enough. "But the picture..." Lena said hesitantly, uncertain she wanted to know. Maybe for once she should just grab for the brass ring and not ask any questions.

"A fake," Bianca told her. "Michael needed to discredit you before you could testify against him, so he set things up to look like you’d embezzled funds for an illegal stock trade. He created that photo to make you look guilty...and to humiliate both of us." she hardened her voice, wanting to drive the point home, "but it wasn’t real." A little more truth, even if it held out the possibility of a lie by inference, giving Lena room to hope that perhaps the other accounts of her activities for Michael were equally fake. Bianca didn’t care. In fact, she would just as soon have seen Lena spared those memories.

Physically uncurling just a little even as she mentally drew into herself, Lena struggled to put things together in her head, but her arm was still a raging mass of agony and the rest of her body wasn’t far behind which made it hard to think and harder still to resist any comfort offered. When standing right at the edge of an abyss, it’s nearly impossible to refuse the only hand being offered to pull one back. At the same time, as much as she wanted to believe, there was some niggling sense of doubt. It just didn’t feel quite right even if she couldn’t quite decide why. Or perhaps she was simply too paranoid to trust in someone else’s goodness. Certainly Bianca wasn’t acting like a woman who hated her even if she should.

Aware of the tension rippling through her lover, suddenly so attuned to Lena’s mood she could almost hear the doubts making their way through her brain, Bianca knew she sensed the holes in the story even if she was in no shape to accurately spot them. Even without her memory and as banged up as she was, Lena was too smart not to see there had to be more to the story if she had enough time to think about it.

And neither of them was up to dealing with more doubts or questions.

"That article was written over a year ago," the girl inserted almost too quickly, "...while you were still in jail---wrongly---because of Michael." Bianca could feel Lena pulling away, her innate sense of logic driving her to question the holes in the story. She had to distract her from that line of inquiry. "Stop and think," the girl hissed a little desperately. "If you had done those things, you’d be in prison by now...not walking around free. She pressed another delicate kiss to the other woman’s temple, feeling her relax fractionally, though far from completely. Bianca was just grateful the desperate struggles had stopped and Lena seemed to be listening to her again. The Polish woman didn’t respond to the pointed logic, though Bianca was certain she was mulling it over. "You were innocent of those charges," she said sharply, "...and we proved it." Which wasn’t exactly the truth, but Kendall had done it on her behalf and for both of them, and at the point Bianca was desperate for anything that might make Lena trust her a little more.

A long pause and then a hesitant question. "Y-you helped me?" Tentative, uncertain, desperately wanting it to be true, and horribly afraid that it wasn’t, Lena barely got the words out.

Bianca couldn’t lie so completely as to simply confirm that statement, but neither could she tell the whole truth. "Not at first," she admitted, unwanted memories of thinking Lena had betrayed her again playing in her head. "I was stupid." She stroked dark hair very gently, drawing much needed comfort from the cool weight. "I believed those pictures...but later I realized..." she trailed off, struggling with the guilt of one more lie, but seeing no other way. "...later I realized you couldn’t have done it," she whispered at last. That much was true. "Please say you believe me," she begged as she nosed deeper into the soft hair at Lena’s temple.

Exhausted beyond measure and too confused to think straight, the fight drained out of Lena along with the last of the adrenaline rush that had kept her going that long. Trembling and weak, she sagged against the younger woman, a soft, hiccuppy sob escaping her lips. None of it made any sense, but she turned into the arms that held her so tenderly, her response less about trust than it was the human need for comfort when she was at her lowest ebb.

"Lena, please," Bianca pressed, her voice low and gentle, but oddly firm at the same time, "tell me you believe me."

Even wanting to trust Bianca, Lena couldn’t quite let go of her suspicion that something wasn’t quite right. "I-I don’t know," she mumbled, the words threatening to slur together. "I don’t know anything anymore." Despite her fears, she didn’t resist this time as she was gathered closer, though whether it was because she truly wished it or no longer had the strength to fight even Lena didn’t know. "It feels like everything’s wrong now."

Bianca silently cursed whoever had given Lena that article, then wondered if it was her own mother she was cursing. God, what a mess. "Tell me what to do to make it right," she begged, her voice thick with guilt and regret.

"I don’t know," Lena admitted, wishing she had a better answer.

"I’d do anything in my power to take away your pain," Bianca breathed.

"If there’s anything I don’t know..." Lena trailed off into silence. After everything that had happened, she wasn’t sure she could take any more surprises. "Just tell me."

Bianca didn’t even pause before she lied. "There’s nothing." Neither of them was prepared to deal with the realities of the rape, and Lena would understand that if she ever got her memory back. It was for the best.

Twisting, Lena peered up at the other woman, seeing no hint of dishonesty in her expression, and yet....

And yet. "No more lies," she said very softly, the hypercharged emotion of minutes before giving way to a weary blandness. It wasn’t that she was hiding her emotions so much as she was simply too fatigued to feel very much any more.

"No more lies," Bianca lied smoothly. It was for the best, she assured herself again, carefully locking away any doubts.

That finally seemed to satisfy Lena because she looked away again and drew in a deep breath, letting it out slowly and leaving Bianca with the sense that she was trying to marshal whatever reserves she had left.

"Let go," Lena requested quietly when she finally spoke.

Bianca tensed, but made no move to comply.

"Don’t worry," the Polish woman sighed, the tiniest flicker of frustration sneaking into her tone. "I’m not going to do anything stupid."

Bianca didn’t resist this time when she was pushed away, but she stayed close as Lena staggered upright, rising along with her, hands outstretched, ready to catch her lover if need be. When she was finally on her feet, Lena just stared at the low wall where Bianca had first found her, shoulders slumped, her breathing slow and strained sounding.

Reaching out, Bianca settled a hand lightly on Lena’s upper arm only to have the other woman shrug away from her touch and take a step forward. Stung over the unspoken rejection, she let her arm drop to her side. "Why don’t you let me help you back downstairs," she suggested.

Lena distantly heard the words, but the meaning barely registered as she stared out over the city, her mind busy trying to make something understandable of what she knew and felt. Unfortunately, what few facts she had were too disparate and too at odds with the confusing jumble of emotions for her to come up with anything remotely coherent and trying to make it fit left her skull feeling like it might just explode at any time. She massaged her temple slowly, but it did nothing to ease the pressure or make sense of it all.

"Lena," Bianca spoke carefully, her tone intended to gain her lover’s intention and also to gently chastise her into doing what she was supposed to.

"No," Lena broke in and shook her head, rejecting the implicit suggestion that she return to her hospital room. "I don’t want..." she trailed off, the fingers at her temple moving to the center of her forehead where an all new pressure point had settled during the intervening moments. At that precise moment she was in no condition to face dealing with her mother, her fears, her accusations, or her demands. Much as she loved the older woman, she was under no illusions as to just how difficult the scene would be.

"Lena," Bianca tried again, her tone placating, "you’re hurt. You need---"

"I said, no," the Polish woman bit out, squeezing her eyes shut again as she fought a rapidly increasing headache. She wavered on her feet, knees weak, vertigo threatening to topple her only to find herself steadied by a gentle hand.

"I really think---" Bianca began, but Lena interrupted.

"I can’t deal with it all right now." Lena shook her head, already imagining the heated words and ugly insinuations. She knew exactly what would happen. Her mother would be angry, there would be insults and accusations, and when she hurled hurtful accusations at Bianca Paulina Kundera wouldn’t understand that she was calling her daughter those same things by extension. Lena wasn’t certain what she felt for the younger woman, but she knew she wasn’t up for the emotional drubbing that would come from watching her raked over the coals. "I need to get out of here," she croaked, suddenly feeling hemmed in, like the sky was pressuring down on her. Was it possible to be claustrophobic outside? Apparently it was. She pulled away from the hand on her arm, spinning too quickly and nearly toppled again.

Again Bianca was there to catch her, though the position put pressure on her cracked ribs and she gasped in pain.

"Lena, please---"

"No," Lena jerked away from the cushioning strength of slender arms and stared down in to frightened eyes, almost resenting that soft look because it made it so damned much harder to see things objectively and she desperately needed some measure of objectivity if she was going to navigate the minefield ahead. "I can’t. I need to get away from here...to think." The words came in a rush, but with oddly spaced pauses as she struggled with the language. Bianca still had one hand under her elbow and another on her side just above her waist and she pushed them both away, ignoring the sharp pain that came from using her broken arm. She started to turn away only to be held back by a surprisingly tight grip on her shoulder.

"You can’t just leave," Bianca reminded her. "You’re still hurt."

It was tempting to point out in how many ways, but Lena resisted the urge. "I’ll be fine," she muttered.

"Your mother---"

"I’ll call her," Lena said before Bianca could get any farther. "I just..." her voice cracked painfully and she couldn’t continue for a long moment. "...I can’t deal with my mother...or any of them...I just..." she trailed off again, struggling to draw in a breath before continuing. "I can’t face everyone....knowing what they know." Everything was crushing in on her and were it not for the hand on her arm she might well have fled.

Bianca was silent for a long beat, but finally she took a deep breath and let it