The Monroe Legacy - G.4. Chapter 3 - Broken Reflections

Lillia awoke coughing, a terrifying tightness in her throat and her limbs leaden. She knew she had seconds to survive so she kicked, her legs feeling as if they were kicking through treacle as tears began to stream down her cheeks.

Then there were hands holding her down, hands and voices and beeping and whiteness.

She drifted off again.

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Next time she came to she was calmer, the beeping was still there and the whiteness but shapes began to emerge from the edges of the blur. Lillia knew she wasn't underwater anymore, her throat was clear but painful and there was a soft pressure on her hand.

She couldn't turn her head but managed to flutter her fingers and the hand in hers jolted as Jeremy Gilbert swam into view.

'She's awake', he screamed. 'Mr Monroe, Mrs Monroe?'

Her parents came rushing into the room, disheveled but grinning, Rachel with tears streaming down her face as Gray kissed Lillia's forehead and stroked her hair.

The next hour was a blur of questions and lights being shone in her eyes. Lillia answered yes, she knew her name, yes she could wiggle her toes and no she wasn't hungry. The doctors seemed to be expecting different answers from those she was giving, consulting something in a folder that her mom kept looking at fearfully.

Apparently satisfied they left  her with her family, Lillia attempted to talk to them but the exhaustion of the last hour soon caused her to drift off to sleep. The next time she woke up the room was full of teenaged girls and flowers.

'Lil' Rose cried on noticing she was awake. 'You had us all so worried!'

Daisy nodded, 'Thank god Jeremy is a little geek and was awake for study club and pulled you out.  He had to do CPR for like, 15 minutes until the meds arrived.'

Typical Daisy, Lillia thought, always covering good with a nasty comment. But what had Jeremy been doing at her house. And who were those other girls in her room?

'What happened to me' she asked her friends. 'I know I was in the pool but I don't know how I got there'.

The unknown girls snickered and Rose shot them a look.

'Lil we were all wasted' Rose said, 'None of us saw you go out, it wasn't until Jeremy screamed for help we even woke up. I guess you just fell in or decided to swim drunk'.

Lillia couldn't believe she would have been so stupid but that wasn't the only odd thing.

'Why were we drunk at my house?' She asked, confusion clear on her face.

The unknown blonde said, 'Um, it was your party? Duh!'

And Lillia snapped. 'Who the hell even are you two. Get out of my room you freaks!' And they scuttled out, looking shocked. Daisy's face was unreadable as Rose looked worried.

'Lillia,' she began, 'Do you really not recognise Brooke and Nina?'

Lillia shook her head, 'I think I've seen them around school but never to speak to.'

Rose nodded.

'Daisy we need to go find the doctors and her parents,' she said, turning away and speaking quietly, but not quietly enough.

Soon the room was filled once again with people and the hated folder. The doctors poked and prodded, asked more questions and then conferred in the corridor. As one left the other held on to a single sheet from the folder and came in and sat at the foot of the bed.

'Lillia,' he said, 'this is a scan we took of your brain the day after you arrived. You can see there is some damage in these areas caused by the oxygen starvation that took place before you were resuscitated. The main area affected by the anoxic injury is called the hippocampus. It's the part of your temporal lobe that looks after your memories.

That's why we were so surprised that you had such a clear recollection of who you were and could answer questions about your life and upbringing. Brain injuries are funny things and we thought that perhaps the damage looked worse than it was or perhaps had affected scattered and non essential memories.

It seems you haven't escaped completely unscathed though, it appears what is lost is your short term memories. The last five to seven months to be precise. You couldn't identify friends made shortly before Christmas but do remember your summer holiday. Can you tell me who Jeremy is?'

Too stunned to process what she had just been told Lillia answered the question.

'He's a boy in my school. I think he's cute. And he was here'.

Her parents looked at her sadly, Lillia didn't know why and turned back to the doctor.

'Why do you want to know about Jeremy?' She demanded.

The doctor also looked sad, 'To pinpoint the beginning of your amnesia. You remember shopping for a Homecoming dress but not what happened at the dance and afterwards. Jeremy is your boyfriend, you were homecoming queen, he was king, he says you love him.'

Lillia couldn't even begin to process that. How could Jeremy be her boyfriend? She hadn't felt anything when she'd seen him. Surely even if her head had forgotten her heart would have remembered. She had liked him for so long.

'Will I get my memories back?' she asked, her voice barely higher than a whisper.

She knew the answer from their faces before the doctor answered.

'We don't think so.'

 

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 They had told her she was lucky, that based on her scans they thought she would have lost more, that she would have died if Jeremy hadn't known CPR, if he hadn't found her. But Lillia didn't feel lucky, she was glad not to be dead but she couldn't call missing six good months of memory lucky, especially when she could remember drowning so vividly. She hoped the nightmares of being in the pool would clear once she was discharged and back in her own bed but they didn't.

Night after night she awoke drenched in sweat, clutching the air and panting. She could feel the water choking her, hear it pushing at her eardrums. Lillia couldn't go to the back of the house, the proximity of the pool was enough to make her panic, she didn't even like to sit where she could see it out of the window.

When her counselor asked her why she told her honestly. Seeing that pool was like seeing her own grave while she was still alive. Six months of her life died in that pool, her career plan died in that pool. Whoever Lillia had been before the accident lay still and unbreathing on the bottom of that pool.

The counselor looked sympathetic and promised she would find her way back to herself. Lillia wanted to slap the sympathetic smile of her face. At 17 six months was a large fraction of her life to lose. She wanted to slap most people these days and apparently this was another part of her brain injury. Irritability due to anoxic injury of the frontal lobe.

Even the sound of the diagnosis was irritating.

Above all though, Lillia was frustrated by herself. She could shut out other people, doing the rest of the academic year as homeschooling and not answering her phone. But even when she was alone in her room there was in escaping that blank hole in her memory, the shadow which had taken the place of her personality. Lillia saw the sideways glances people gave each other when she didn't respond how they expected, the careful readjustment of their expectations of her when they realised she didn't remember.

The girl in the mirror might have looked like her but she wasn't the same. She wasn't a swimmer, a girlfriend or a leader.

Lillia was lost.

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Read on with Chapter 4 - Facade and Failure

The Monroe Legacy - G.3. Chapter 15 - Hard Choices

Eva's first year in Lucky Palms was something of a battlefield. At first she just ignored everything and everybody. She spent her days calling Milo back in Mexico or working secretively on the computer, at night she would vanish, returning in the small hours with no explanation. 

She barely spoke to Gray and treated Rachel as if she weren't there. Gray tried to strike a balance with his daughter, flexibility and space to let her adjust and discipline to curb her more destructive tendencies.

Eva made a mockery of every nice gesture, especially those which came from her stepmother who tried desperately to connect with the wayward teen. Rachel had arranged for the guest room to be redecorated for Eva, Eva had turned her nose up at the decor, only grudgingly accepting Rachel's slightly strained offer that they redo it together, before shutting her stepmother out again.

Rachel never told Gray that she struggled with Eva, greeting him when he returned from work with smiles, dinner and armfuls of giggling babies but he could tell that all was not well by the tension at the rare dinners they dragged Eva down for. Eva's grades were terrible, she wouldn't socialise  with her cousins or most of the kids at school, spending her days smoking behind the gym with the rebel kids in the years above her. Things went from bad to worse when Rachel confronted Eva having found her in the hot tub with a senior year boy.

'Your father spent almost a decade fighting for you! Looking for you! Praying for your safety and that you would come back to him! I watched it almost destroy him. I saw the look on his face when he thought you were dead. Hate me all you want but don't repay him by throwing your life away!'

A slightly staggered Eva took Rachel at her word and went from largely ignoring her stepmother to actively tormenting her. When Gray found Rachel rocking baby Casper to sleep with traces of blue dye still in her hair he decided enough was enough.

He had tried kindness, he had tried firmness and he had had enough. When Rachel was out with Lillia at Saffron's, Gray sat Eva down and laid it out.

'Eva. Do you want to go back to Mexico?'

Her eyes widened slightly before she could smooth over her features.

'I knew you didn't really want me!' She retorted, 'You only brought me here because you had to!'

Gray's response was quiet but no less vehement than a shout would have been.

'Don't you dare say that again. Losing you all those years ago destroyed me, Rachel finally gave me a reason to start living again but for six years all I thought of was you. Finding you was one of the happiest days of my life and I would do anything, ANYTHING, to make you happy.

But you seem miserable here, and you make the lives of other people I love miserable with your behaviour. I can't let that happen anymore. So I'm asking you to choose.

Do you want to go back to Mexico? I would hate to lose you again, but I would hate even more to have all of our lives, yours included, ruined by my selfish need to have you near me.'

As Gray spoke tears began to trickle down Eva's cheeks, her shoulders heaving with all the tears she hadn't shed when she'd found her mother and sister, the ones she'd kept back every time she'd looked at herself and seen all the flaws that separated her from her father's perfect family.

As much as he wanted to rush and comfort her, Gray was done pushing Eva. Finally she pulled herself together enough to mumble her response.

'I want to stay.'

From that day things got a little easier, it wasn't a fast process but it was progress.

Eva's grades went from a D to a C, she wore a little less eyeliner and spent a little less time in her room. Gray might have missed a lot of firsts, her first day at school and first loose tooth, but he began to appreciate some new firsts, small signs that things might get better.

He smiled the first time Eva willingly joined them for a movie, laughing with them, a noise Gray had barely heard before that night. His heart swelled the day he caught her cuddling Lillia, crooning a little song to her in Spanish. He tried to be nonchalant the day he discovered Eva chopping vegetables for dinner and passing them to a slightly shell- shocked looking Rachel.

When Eva didn't arrive for Casper's first birthday, Gray's heart sank. They'd made so much progress, Lillia adored her big sister, Rachel was happy and comfortable again and Gray had begun to see flashes of the little girl he'd known under the black haired persona of his teenage daughter. Her absence without explanation on a day like today, not only a birthday but the anniversary of their reunion, weighed heavy on his heart.

Eventually they could wait no longer and Rachel lit the candles on the cake. Just as she put out the match the front door flew open and a teenaged whirlwind blew in. Eva's face was completely innocent, only a tiny smirk giving away her pleasure at her dad's surprise.

Gone was the black, her hair restored to its natural blonde, the pink streaks running through it a nod to her old look.

Quickly explaining that the salon had been running late Eva began singing happy birthday, jolting Rachel and Gray into action. As Casper blew out his candles Gray sent up a little prayer. Today was a day of transformation, his son was growing up strong and healthy, his little daughter was confident and sweet-natured and his eldest daughter had finally started to come back to him.

After the presents were opened and the cake cut, Eva offered to put Lillia to bed while adults sorted Casper and tidied up. After putting on the dishwasher Gray crept upstairs and watched from the hall as Eva read her baby sister to sleep, softly petting Lillia's hair as she nodded off.

As Eva crept out of the room, Gray couldn't help pulling her to him for a hug. She tensed but then relaxed, the bottom of his chin just hitting the top of her head. He could believe she was letting him hold her.

 Pulling away with a slightly shy smile Eva said,

'Gee, You really are a soppy mess sometimes.'

Gray cleared his throat and tried to retain his composure.

'Ah... Yep. I guess so. I just always get emotional on birthdays. I like the hair by the way.'

Eva gave another of her knowing grins,

'I knew you didn't like the black. You didn't have to say so. I just decided it was time to try out being Eva Monroe properly and send Maia Garcia back to Mexico where she belongs.

Anyway, I'm gonna go Skype Milo. G'night dad.'

As Eva scampered to her room, letting the door bang shut Gray felt Rachel's arms encircle him from behind. She had heard the whole thing.

'She called you dad' she whispered.

Gray didn't have to say anything, Rachel could feel his chest shaking with gentle sobs.

It was all going to be alright.

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Read Chapter 16 - Mind, Matter and Maverick

The Monroe Legacy - G.3. Chapter 14 - Home Truths

'I remember you. You smiled and sang, but Mama said you never wanted me.'

Eva stuck her chin out, defying him to believe she cared but pain shot through her eyes.

'Mama didn't much like me either but at least she didn't leave me.' With this she turned and rushed into the bar, her shoulders beginning to shake.

Milo followed her leaving Gray, horrified and shocked, outside with the owner who now put his gun away and introduced himself as Ty, Milo's uncle.

'I'm guessing by the look on your face that you didn't leave her?' Ty asked. Gray shook his head numbly.

'Aisha... Her mother. She used Eva to try and fix our relationship. I loved Eva, still love Eva, but when I told Aisha it was over she just vanished and took Eva with her. I've been searching for her for a decade.'

Ty looked at the man in front of him with sympathy, his expression was so desperate, his tone so broken that Ty knew he wasn't lying.

'Listen man, you have to tell Maia, I mean Eva, all of that. But she's gonna want proof and it won't be easy to make her believe you. She's not even fourteen but she's been hurt too often, she puts on a good front with the piercings and the attitude, but she's a mess. You want your daughter back, I get that, but it's going to take time and it's probably going to break you heart all over again.'

Gray nodded, he'd never really imagined what might happen if he found Eva, imagining her personality to be the same as she'd been as a child. He would do whatever it took.

'Ty, can you tell me what you know about her, so I have some idea what I'm dealing with before I go to her and try to persuade her to come home with me?'

The older man nodded grimly.

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'I met Eva when she moved to the neighbourhood a year ago. Milo found her sleeping in the bus station and brought her here for the night. It took a couple of months to get her to trust us. She's never told us much but here's what I figured out.

 Antonia brought Eva and her little sister Cara, short for Carmen I think, to town a year ago to hide. Seems she had been married to a guy who made his money importing and exporting certain high risk products. Antonia was a cold woman, One time she came in here drinking and told me she'd only brought Eva here because her husband, Jorge I think he was called, said what she was smuggling in would be best hidden on a kid, specially an adorable white kid.'

 Gray seethed, he'd believed many things of Aisha over the years and she was living up to most of them.

'Even then I think Eva knew her ma didn't much care for her, especially when she saw how she was with Carmen. Cara was a sweet child, a little slow, but Eva and Antonia both worshipped her. Her pa liked her just fine, as long as she stayed quiet when he had his associates over. They wanted for nothing, even Eva was taken care of, and Antonia would have done anything for that man. What she did do and know was the reason she was out here hiding.

Just before they moved, someone killed Jorge, don't know how, don't know why. The girls were away at the spa. Antonia knew that with what she knew and without his protection she was a dead woman. So she ran.

Soon after she got here she threw Eva out, I never found out why but I got the impression from overhearing her and Milo that Antonia believed Eva had leaked the info that lead to Jorge being killed. Eva's a smart girl and I don't believe that's true, but one way or the other she ended up living on the streets, creeping back in and sleeping when her ma was at work and caring for Cara.

After Milo brought her here she asked for a job. I gave it to her and offered her a place to stay. Two weeks ago she went back to see her sister and found the place shot up and her family dead. I can't imagine what that was like. We've been hiding her in case those guys are looking for her too.

Your daughter is a good girl, but she's scared and she's angry and she doesn't trust anyone. Not even Milo really. We only found out her real name because she was screaming in her sleep.'

Gray's head was in his hands. He'd wondered what kind of life Eva had had, imagining all sorts of horrors which now seemed less ridiculous than he'd convinced himself they were. Her childhood sounded alright but it was a far cry from the affection he would have showered her with. And the past year... he couldn't begin to make sense if it, his mind going back over and again the look of betrayal in his daughter's eyes when she'd accused him of leaving her.

Gray wasn't sure if he could ever make it all right for her, but he would try.

After talking with Ty, it was decided that Gray would get his proof together, ready to show that he hadn't ever given up and Ty would try and prepare Eva for the truth of her abduction. Gray called a cab back to the police station to collect his evidence and to see what paperwork would be involved in trying to get Eva back home.

After a brief conversation with the police it became clear that the issue of Eva's identity would be difficult to prove, especially if it was tied up with the Jorge Garcia murder investigation. The man had been a kingpin of a major drug trafficking organisation who were caught up in a deadly turf war with a rival. However she was an at-risk minor (it was believed that the killers of Aisha and Cara were still in the area) they might be able to issue a temporary Visa which would get Eva home and the formalities could be dealt with then. 

The catch? Eva would have to go willingly.

Whilst the wheels were set in motion Gray called Rachel who seemed genuinely thrilled that Eva had been found. Despite the demanding cries of their 12 hour old son, Rachel insisted Gray should stay in Mexico and try and orchestrate Eva's return, Casper would probably be in NCU for at least a week and she could manage.

Gray felt as if his heart was being pulled in two. Across the border a beautiful woman with a kind heart was caring for a demanding toddler and a newborn baby and here in Mexico, his long- lost daughter was hurting and alone.

It took three days to get the temporary Visa and five days to persuade Eva to come back to Lucky Palms. She had been less harsh with Gray once he had shown her the newspaper appeals he had made with Hallie's help, the stacks of research and the police reports. But she couldn't dispel the idea that she would once again become the odd one out in a family or forget the last ten years.

Eva's response to Gray's remarriage had been minimal, a single tear that she refused to acknowledge or wipe away running down her face as he told her about Rachel, Lillia and Casper, unable to keep the adoration from his voice. Gray begged and pleaded, promising to protect her, to treat her equally and to help her adjust, but Eva was stubborn in her refusal, she knew how to survive here, she had friends.

In the end it was Milo and Ty who convinced her; Milo with his impassioned pleas to get away from the area before whoever was out for her family found her and Ty by threatening to kick her out and fire her. In the end Eva agreed because she was out of options.

It was far from the loving reunion that Gray had always imagined but he didn't care as long as she was coming back.

As they pulled away from Ty and Milo in a cab headed to the airport, Gray tried to squeeze Eva's hand and then tried not to be hurt as she pulled away, staring out of the window. He knew that nothing but time and actions would truly convince his lonely daughter that she was wanted and safe.

After a quiet flight and a tense drive they arrived at their house, Gray fighting the urge to rush inside, kiss his wife and meet his new son, giving Eva time to adjust and prepare.

As she finally began to walk through the gate, tugging nervously on the hem of the only new dress she had let him buy her, Gray allowed himself a small smile.

Eva was home.       

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Read on with Chapter 15 - Hard Choices

The Monroe Legacy - G.3.Chapter 7 - I'll Be Seeing You

Saffron hardly recognised the man who stepped out of the taxi as her brother.

It was more than a physical change, sure Gray was thinner, his hair was a mess, his usual clean shave gone and there were dark circles around his eyes, but his spirit seemed broken. He carried himself differently, the sparkle in his eyes had been replaced by a dead hardness.

Saffron wondered if he would ever have come back if she hadn't called and begged, begged him to come home for Hallie's sake.

 

Eva's disappearance had changed Gray but it had aged their mother. Always vivacious and full of life she was now quiet and somehow smaller. The gray streaks in her hair had become the majority, before finally chasing the last if the black from her long braid. Just as she had promised her son she had campaigned for her granddaughter's return making appearances on TV, hiring investigators, pushing the police to look further, to look harder. She kept the house going, she bore Gray's pain along with the deaths of two of her siblings, Belle died quietly in her sleep while Georgia finally gave in to her illness.

 Until one day she could go no more.

Saffron and Leyton had watched the whole thing, trying to slow her down, trying to shoulder the burden but Hallie was stubborn. Gray's despairing calls from the search had kept Hallie pushing until her body simply refused. The day that Saffron found her mother asleep in her car, in the garage with the engine running  exhausted and bent, was the day she had called her brother.

While she knew that no amount of time would numb the loss for Gray she warned him that he was going to lose more of his family if he kept going, and miss out on moments he would later regret. Though she didn't want to say it, Saffron could tell her mother was nearing the end.

Gray had argued, claimed to be on the edge of a breakthrough in Mexico, but Saffron could hear him trying to convince himself as well as her, and once she finally spoke out her fears, he agreed to return.

With Gray back the Monroe house was fuller but sadder. Hallie's energy waned, she often spent all day in bed, her heart breaking for her son's loss and her head worrying about what he would do once she was gone. Saffron and Leyton helped where they could but stuck mainly to their own quarters, it seemed cruel to parade their relationship in front of Gray who could mostly be found scouring Mexican newspapers, calling the contacts he had made whilst searching or just staring at the wall.

Violet stayed away, she was expecting a second child any day and Amelie looked a little too much like Eva for Gray to bear. Sienna and Jet were both out of the country and though they called, Gray would rarely speak to them.

Amelie Monroe-King 

When Hallie, on a good day, told Gray that he had to keep hoping and get out of the house he started walking. He would go out for hours, covering miles, always carrying Eva's picture to ask people if they'd seen her and Aisha's too, he'd have loved to destroy it, to watch it burn, but she was a link he might need, a face that might be recognised. 

Though the police still came up with new angles from time to time, Gray no longer felt the thrill of hope he had when the search began.

The only light in this dark time was the marriage of Saffron and Leyton. They had planned to wait until they could afford a home, but given the circumstances and Hallie's declining health they decided to have a tiny service at home. Hallie smiled throughout, it was good to see another of her children settled and happy, she prayed that Saffron's fate would be happier than Gray's had been of late.

Gray was on one of his walks when his mother died. He received a calm but heartbroken phone call from Saffron telling him to come back, her tone telling him what her words did not, that Hallie was gone.

Gray sat, frozen to the spot, letting the snow fall on him and watching the tiny flakes settle on his knuckles. He wondered how long he would have to sit still before it would stop melting, chilling his body until the snow could cover him and make him forget.

But as he sat, he could hear his mother in his head, see her face in his mind's eye. She had always supported him, believed in him and to give up would be a pretty horrible way to honour everything she'd given up for him. Gray forced himself to move, for the first time in almost two years moving Eva from the front of his mind and replacing her with his mother.

She deserved more from her legacy than a quitter.

The funeral was small and quiet. Hallie's surviving siblings, Oscar and Lola and their families, all of Gray's brothers and sisters, Leyton, Derek and little Amelie. They talked and wept, remembering their parents who were now together again until it got to be too much and everyone dispersed, returning to their homes to grieve in their own way.

As Gray turned to go back to his room, to figure out his next step, Saffron stopped him. Handing him a letter she hugged him hard.

'Mom asked me to give you this when this day came. She also told me to say that things are going to get better'.

 

Gray tried for a smile and settled for a nod, taking the letter.

'Thanks Saff' he said gruffly, 'not just for this, but for everything. I owe you.'

His sister's eyes glittered with tears and she shook her head,

'This is what family is for' and she turned and went to find Leyton.

Gray made his way to his bedroom trying not to look at the doors of his mother's room or the nursery, focusing instead in the letter he held.

Collapsing by his bed he gently unfolded it, smoothing the creases out and running his fingers over the curving script of his mother's handwriting,

Gray,

I have tried over and again to think of the right words to leave you with once I am gone. Some are obvious. I love you. I am so proud of you. I wish you peace and happiness.

The others are harder. I wanted to find a way to take away your guilt and your pain and your longing, but all I could come up with was this.

Live.

Gray, you have to live. I believe that Eva will be delivered safely home, I pray for it daily. Keep looking, but remember to live. If you forget yourself completely, pouring all of yourself into the search then you will have nothing left for her when she comes back. Find a way back to happiness even as Eva finds her way back to you.

We will watch over her, your father and I, just as we will watch over you.

I love you,

Mom 

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Read the next chapter now - Ch. 8 - Choosing the Light