Chapter Nineteen:

He stands up and walks over to Susannah, they embrace, “Welcome home, Bo.”

He walks back over to the bed and sits down beside her, “I’m sorry it took me so long to come back to you. I…I couldn’t…”

She raised her finger and placed it on his lips, silencing him, “Sweetheart, believe me we have a lot to talk about and I have a whole lot of questions about where you were and you’ve got a lot of explaining to do, but right now,” she squeezes his hand as another contraction comes, “I’m…I’m really busy.”

Bo smiles, “We have the rest of our lives to talk.” He leans in and kisses her, “The rest of our lives.”

Nora nods and grabs his hand, “Honey,…go… get the doctor…now.”

“I’ll go get her, you stay with Nora.” Susannah rushes out of the room and down the hallway.

Dr. Conklin rushed into the room a few minutes later. She stepped back for a moment when she saw Bo sitting on the bed beside Nora, but decided that now definitely wasn’t the time for explanations. Instead she just smiled and walked over to the bed, “Okay, Nora. Are you ready?”

She turns and looks at Bo; raising her hand to rest on his cheek. She turns back and looks at the Dr, “Now I am.”

“Okay, now I want you to remember that we’re going to be taking him right up to NICU, and as soon as he’s evaluated and stabilized we’ll take you up to see him.”

Nora nods, “I understand,” she grimaces as another contraction comes, “Let’s do this…”

Bo sat beside her and held her hand, breathing through every contraction, grimacing with every push, and a half hour later their son entered the world…

*~*

Susannah walked through the front door and found the house completely empty. She threw her keys and her purse down on the table and walked out into the back yard. She smiled when she saw Destiny playing in the sandbox in the corner of the yard and Matthew perched high on top of the half -finished tree house.

Matthew saw her from his spot on the roof and waved, “Aunt Susannah, are you going to go take me to soccer now?”

She raised her hand to shield her eyes from the sun, “Hey, Matty, come on down from there. I need to talk to you about something.”

Matthew carefully climbed off the top of the tree house and ran over to where she was standing. She took his hand and brought him over to the sandbox where Destiny and Maryanne were waiting. Susannah sat down on the edge of the sandbox and pulled Matthew down on her lap. She looked over at Maryanne and smiled, “I have something really important to tell you.”

Matthew jumps up and stands in front of her, “What is it, what's wrong with my mom, is she okay? Is it the baby?” he fights back the tears threatening to fall. He promised his dad he would take care of them.

“Matthew your mom’s fine, the baby’s fine.”

"I don't understand, if they’re fine then why are you acting all weird?”

"Well, remember when Dr. Larry called and told us that a man pushed your mom out of the path of an oncoming truck?" He nods, still unsure of where this was going. "Well that man was your father."

He squints at her, trying to comprehend, "You mean like an angel watching over her?"

She shakes her head, "Matthew please come sit down." He slowly makes his way back over to the sandbox, "Your father wasn't an angel, sweetie."

"Well if he wasn't an angel then how could he push mom out of the way?"

"Matthew, we aren't sure of all the details yet. All I know is your father is alive."

He looks between her and Maryanne, "Are you sure, have you seen him?"

She nods her head, "He's with your mother right now."

"Is it really him?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

She smiles, "Yes."

A smile spreads across his face, "He came back to us." Again she nods. Then Matthew turns angry, the tears beginning to well up in his eyes, "What took him so long?"

She stands up and kneels in front of him, she takes his face in her hands, “Matthew, sweetheart, we don’t know what happened or where your dad was all this time. I know this for sure though, something big must’ve happened that kept your daddy away from you because there is no way he would stay away from you if he had the choice.”

Matthew shrugs as he walks over and sits back down beside her; wiping the tears off his face with the back of his hand. He looks back up at her, “He’s really here?”

She looks down at him and smiles, “Yes, baby. He’s really here.”

He stands up, “I want to go check on my mom. Can we?”

“Of course, but first I have something else to tell you.”’

His face falls, “Is it bad?”

She smiles, “No…no, it’s not bad, sweetie. It’s good news.” She kneels down in front of him, “Your mom had your baby brother today.”

A smile spread across his face, “She did.” He pauses for a moment, “Wait, mom said the baby wasn’t supposed to come until after I was done school.”

“You’re right, he wasn’t, and he’s probably going to have to stay in the hospital for a while, until he gets bigger but the doctor said he’s doing well.”

He grabs her hand and pulls her up, “I wanna go see my mom.”

She laughs, “Okay, okay, let’s go inside and get you guys cleaned up and then we’ll go to the hospital. I know you’re daddy can’t wait to see you.”

She notices the flash of anger in his eyes again at the mention of his father. Susannah followed him into the house, hoping that by the time they get to the hospital the anger will have subsided.

*~*

Bo sat beside her bed just staring at her while she slept. He couldn’t take his eyes off of her. Everything that happened right before the explosion came flooding back, their last moments together, now obviously when their son was conceived, the last time he saw her standing beside Renee, that last kiss on her cheek. Bo leaned back in the chair and let the memories come, she would be awake soon, and she would want answers. She deserved answers.

He hears her moan and notices her begin to stir, her eyes slowly opening. She looks to her left and smiles, “You’re really here.”

He stands up and walks over to the bed. He takes her hand and sits down on the edge of the bed, facing her, “Yeah, honey. I’m here.” The tears suddenly begin to fall. He reaches out and wipes the tears, “Oh, Red…”

She shakes her head, trying to keep her emotions from overwhelming her, “I don’t understand. What happened? Where were you all this time,” she begins to get angry, “Why did you stay away for so long!?”

“I had no idea who I was. No one knew.”

“There was a body in the car. They swore to me it was you, they made me believe it was you.”

“Who?”

“I wasn’t sure at first, I later found out they were the FBI.”

Once again his mind stepped back in time; another wave of memories from that night coming to the forefront…

Bo mumbles a name out loud, his mind still in the past, “James Cass.”

Nora sat up straight, her heart beginning to race when she heard him say James’ name, “That’s right, Agent James Cass.”

Her voice pulled him out of the past, “He was the one. He was the mole.”

“No”, she mumbles, shaking her head, “No…”

Bo can tell that something’s upsetting her, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“He…he was the one that showed me the proof. He showed me how they had identified your body; he said they were 100% sure, that there wasn’t any doubt.” She covered her face with her hands, her body wracked with sobs. He reached out; but she shook her head no, not wanting to be held, her anger rising to the surface, “I…I let him comfort me. I let him in to my life…into our home. I almost let him convince me to move on with my life…with him.”

The thought of her moving on gave him a jolt, but he quickly shook it off, turning his attention back to her, “Honey, you didn’t know…” She looks up at him, the anger and hurt in her eyes was breaking his heart, “It wasn’t your fault, Red. You had no reason to believe he was lying.”

“He did this to us.”

Bo nodded his head, “I don’t want you blaming yourself.” He titled her chin up, making her look at him, “Promise me you’re not going to blame yourself. It wasn’t your fault that I couldn’t remember who I was, that I couldn’t remember anything about my life.”

“How can I not? Maybe if I hadn’t believed him we would’ve known you were still alive. That you were lost out there, all alone.”

“I wasn’t alone though, and now I’m home.” He leans in and kisses her, “And I remember everything.”

“Where were you?”

“Upstate New York in the beginning and then we went to Ireland.”

“How did you get to New York, do you remember?”

“I remember waking up in an abandoned hunting lodge up in the mountains. I know now it had to be somewhere on Llantano Mountain. The one thing I don’t remember is how I got there. I remember wandering around through the dense forest, until I found a road. I just kept walking and walking, eventually flagging down a truck driver who took me as far as his last stop, somewhere in upstate NY. I remember walking through a field and then the next thing I know I woke up and I was in a clean bed. There was this woman there,” he reached out and touched her hair, “She had hair just like yours. Her husband even called her Red.” She smiled, “The first time I heard him call her that, I felt something…something familiar. I had flashes of memories, of conversations we’ve had, or things we’ve done. So much about Michael and Bridget, reminded me of us, I just didn’t realize it until now.”

“Tell me about them.”

“He’s a DEA agent and she’s a teacher; actually she teaches with Patrick.”

She sits up, “You saw Patrick?”

He smiles, “Yeah, and Marty. They have a daughter, they name her NoraLynn, after you.” She smiles, missing their friends, glad that they were there for Bo when she couldn’t be, “It was Marty that finally convinced me to come home, memory or no memory. She told me all about us, she told me our story.”

“Michael and Bridget, did they have any children?”

“Yes”, he pauses for a moment, realizing for the first time why seeing their children had had such a profound effect on him, “they have a seven year old son and a five month old little girl, who I ended up delivering during a blizzard.”

She noticed the tears beginning to well up in his eyes, “What’s wrong?” she asked, reaching out to wipe the tear off his cheek.

“I was remembering back to the first time I saw their little girl. She had dark hair and dark eyes, but when I looked at her, when I held her, I saw a little girl with red hair and sparkling blue eyes, I saw our daughter.” He looked up at her, the tears now falling from her eyes, “The same thing happened to me when I saw their son…I wasn’t seeing him, I was seeing Matthew, I just didn’t realize it then.”

“They missed you so much, Bo, so much. Destiny would cry for you at night, and Matthew”, she sighed, “Matthew tried so hard to be brave for you, to make you proud of him by taking care of all of us. He’s so much like you, Bo.”

He was just about to say something when the door to her room opened and Susannah walked in holding Destiny’s hand, Matthew walking in behind her. Bo stood up and walked towards the door, kneeling down as Destiny toddled towards him. She stopped inches from him and reached out and touched his face, “Daddy,” she said. Bo smiled through his tears and scooped her up in his arms, “Yes, baby. Daddy’s here.”

He held her for a few minutes before letting her go. She ran over to Nora’s bed, demanding to be held by her mother. Susannah walked over to the bed and lifted her up onto Nora’s lap, both of them turning their attention back to Bo who was still kneeling down in the middle of the room. Matthew stood by the door, his arms crossed tightly in front of him, “How are you, buddy?” Bo asked cautiously.

Matthew shrugs, “Where have you been?”, he asked angrily, continuing without giving Bo a chance to respond, “You made mom cry, she cried for you every night, Destiny did too.” He paused for a moment, his pain and anger waging a war with his desire to be held in his father’s arms. He straightened his shoulders, “You can go back to where you were. I can take care of them, we don’t need you.” He shouted, the tears slowly falling.