Title: 10 Summoners Tales Epilogue: Nothing 'bout Me

Author: xSaBx
Rating: PG-17. Gratuitous sex scene. Perhaps a little disturbing.

Summary: There's a [*] inserted into "It's Probably Me" That's where this begins, it's pretty obvious where it ends. The word I should use at this point is "allegorical"...you'll work it out, you're smart. If you don't understand...I suggest you stay up all night once in a while with insomnia, get scared by the odd seemingly-unfrightening movie and then read Iain Banks' "The Bridge".

Spoilers: Early Season Two

Disclaimers: Evie, Morag, Mickey and Max are mine, and everyone else isn't.

Thanks: To Kathryn, may this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship. To Vicki, let's hope this one doesn't make you cry. To everyone else: from now on, this is serious stuff.

Category: New Characters/General

==

Nothing 'bout Me

This is where they found me.

I stand on the foreshore and look across the bay. The first rays of the morning sun are trying to pierce the ever-present mist that hangs across the sea past the end of the lighthouse, but today as I'm sure is true of every day the attempt is unsuccessful. If I had the strength or the courage I might struggle to walk across the jetty, I might finally attempt to reach the outer bounds of what I'm now convinced is a prison. It may be wonderfully quaint and agreeable here, but there's no doubting that I am incarcerated, trapped without escape.

I look back across the dunes, dotted with rye grass and heathers. The gig stands waiting for me. Stephen kills time, pacing backwards and forwards around the chestnut mare that stands impassively, watching him almost in amusement. I know he again risks punishment by bringing me here, but I had to come once more, to try and see if by standing at the place where they found me I'd be able to conjure some memory from the recesses of my brain. The past is still a stubborn blank, which refuses to illuminate.

Stephen looks at his watch and then to me. Even from this distance I can tell he's getting anxious, and so I think it's time we left. I'm not going anywhere, and neither is this place: there's always another day. I start the process of walking back towards the horse and gig, but it is difficult over the sands with my walking stick. Stephen approaches me and closes the distance between us in a matter of moments. He then stops and stands, looking disapprovingly over his glasses.

"I would hope that you will not be too tired now?" The accents of these people, the manner in which they speak is sometimes confusing, even after all this time. It's almost as if they talk a different language and have learnt mine simply as a concession. I have to really concentrate to understand and that makes me still more tired.

"No, I'm fine...I'm sorry I dragged you out here again. I just wanted to come back, that's all. Thank you"

"I risk a great deal every time I bring you to this place"

"I'm aware of that, and I won't let you be punished on my behalf"

"You do not have ownership of that choice"

"But I do have some influence now. Take me back to the village; I'll say we spent some time walking here but I didn't venture to the sea"

Stephen helps me slowly and carefully back to the horse. It takes a little time to get me up onto the gig and to get comfortable, and only when I'm settled does my driver go to the front seat, and we both begin the journey back.

==

West Haven is a paradox in so many ways.

When you approach it as we now do from the west, it looks simply too perfect. No village could ever be this neatly turned out, with each house painted the same crisp and unblemished white. Only as you come closer do you realise that every house is identical: the same number of windows and doors, the same two floors and black-painted thatched roofs. Only the gardens are different: the trees, shrubs and plants the sole concession to individuality.

As we pass a clutch of three homes the men and women working outside turn from their gardening and pruning and wave in a friendly fashion. They look like dolls; the men dressed in their white smocks and black trousers, the women in white dresses with black hats. The only colour here comes from nature; the people and their associations are strictly monochrome.

There is one exception, and we now pass the house as we head towards my abode. It is the Overseer's Residence, which houses Jonathan and his wife Amelia. He is the town's spiritual and secular leader, she the town's doctor. It is as if all the colour in the buildings of the whole village has been leeched away and drawn to this one spot, a mass of brown and grey stone with pale gold thatch and climbing roses of pale pink and bright scarlet. This is where I first came, carried on a litter, hovering between life and death when Jonathan's son James found me on his daily morning beach comb along the shoreline. It is here that Lionel, the head of the Overseer's household, prints the Village Newspaper; it is here that Christine and Tony work, and where Stephen lives, with the horses and the only transport. Everything revolves about this building, all the roads lead here. This is the centre of the village.

There are Morris Dancers on the Green in front of the house, practicing as they always are in the mornings. All twelve of them stop and wave their sticks at me, which makes me laugh. I've been here long enough to know that a whole year has elapsed, without any actual knowledge of what day it is or the year I'm in. Four whole seasons: I arrived here in summer, and I have never seen a single child in the village or a single visitor since. No one talks of anything else other than West Haven. The roads from the village lead to nowhere, there is no connection to any other town or city, or indeed to anywhere else. There is never anything the town is without, or needs: this place is totally self-sufficient, and completely surrounded by fog.

As far as I have been able to ascertain I am the only person ever to be washed up on the shoreline.

This is why I am convinced I'm either incarcerated, or I'm in Hell.

==

The gig draws up outside my monochrome home. Stephen helps me down and bids me farewell, he has errands to run to the north of the village. He will return later to collect me, and then he will go and collect Christine from the Library, and we will both be taken to the Overseer's for lunch and my daily medical examination.

When they found me my leg was shattered in two places: destroyed, Amelia thought, by a collision with a rock when I was washed ashore. I spent a season in the Overseer's home, and remember watching the leaves turn from green to gold from my room in the top of the three-story building. I think I would have gone insane if it wasn't for James. I can recollect him sitting by my bedside as I moved in and out of the fever that the Doctor feared would ultimately consume me. He would read to me, stories I couldn't understand in the most part for in those early days the language of these people was incomprehensible. It was only over time and with his patience that I found myself able to decipher what he was saying. It took me another season to recover sufficiently to be able to manage alone, and I was found this house, about five minutes drive from the centre of the village. Amelia insisted that I have a maid: she an older woman called Mary whose speech is so guttural I still can't understand her at all. We communicate mostly with gestures.

She has prepared lunch for me: fruit and bread with some kind of meat I still can't identify. Its name is not one I remember or can equate to anything familiar. There are animals here: sheep and pigs, but they seem more decorative than functional. The cows I have seen I know do at least provide milk. I sit and eat alone in the small parlour at the front of the house. Every other home has its parlour at the back: I have to find small ways to rebel here. When I got Stephen to move the furniture around he looked at me as if I was insane. I'm beginning to think I am.

There's a knock at the door, and I'm immediately cheered. This will be James, on his way from his residence in the South of the village to his father's home. He arrives in the parlour holding a bunch of wild poppies, their petals a bright blood red. He's been visiting me every day for the last half a season, and I'm beginning to rely on his presence to get me through the daylight hours.

"I thought your mind would like these" He speaks slower than everyone else, allowing me time to understand.

"Thank you James" There are no surnames here; it is abundantly obvious who is related to who.

He sits down beside me, watching quietly as I eat. I discovered only recently that he is betrothed to a woman with blonde hair and pale skin whose name I still don't know and who works on the Village Newspaper. I have heard rumours in the last few days that their relationship is on rocky ground, and there are many who point a finger at me for being the troublemaker. Women here seem to hold much more power than the men; even the Overseer's wife ultimately has more influence than her husband.

"I must be with my Father for the afternoon, but I hope you would let me visit again later"

Tenses don't seem to matter here, maybe it's because there's no real perception of time. I look at him, dressed in dark trousers and a deep blue shirt. It's the same blue as the sea on the far side of the bay this morning. There's something different about him, something I just can't isolate that sets him apart from the rest of the villagers. His eyes are brown and deep, soft and inviting. He would stare at me for an age when I lay convalescing, his gaze warm and fascinating. Sometimes I wish I were still incapable of movement, so that I could again spend as much time with him as I did.

When I was confined to the small room at the top of the Overseer's home we would spend whole days together. As I learnt to understand him he began to appreciate my dilemma, and the ridiculous nature of the place in which we found ourselves. I would continually ask questions about my whereabouts and he would gently quiz me on my identity. He is the only person who really understands the question "Is there anything outside West Haven?" as he knows there must be something, but does not know what. This was a quantum leap forward in comprehension for us both, and why I think we are now so close. No one else seems to grasp that basic premise. In truth, no one else cares.

A wave of tiredness hits me, I want to forget the remains of my dinner and sleep, but I have to see the Doctor first. I will take advantage of her son's presence and keep myself awake.

"James, would you walk me to your Father's house?"

"I would be honoured"

==

We are almost there now, and it is the early part of the afternoon. I know this because the Village Newspaper is being loaded onto Stephen's gig, ready to be distributed around the homes of the village. I can't read the thing; it's a mess of characters and abbreviations that even now I can't decipher. James occasionally translates it for me, but most of its articles are incomprehensible.

"You had travelled with James when I had called for you, so I came here with only Christine." Stephen smiles at me as we arrive at the Overseer's front porch. I smile back at him; he is an amenable man and has risked punishment on many occasions to take me to the farthest parts of the village, as I tried in the early days to find a way in which to leave. Once he rode me to within a few feet of the fog covering the forest to the north, but was too scared himself to go any further. I'm incapable of walking through it myself, something in that dense mist renders me totally powerless, and I pass out. Each time I have awoken back in my home. When I have asked Stephen of how I got back he has no idea what I am talking about.

Christine stands and supervises the loading of the newspaper. She is different from most of the village women: like Amelia and me she is allowed to wear colour. Today it is a green skirt with her short black jacket and hat. She smiles and curtsies, as is the tradition.

"You are well received and may you have and have had good fortune this day"

"Hello"

I return the gesture and stand, waiting for Amelia herself to emerge and invite me in. In a moment she is there, with Tony. Christine and Tony were married at the end of the autumn when I came here, their wedding was the first event I was able to attend unaided. It's one of the few times I didn't feel trapped being here. It was a glorious day, with colour and celebration, and a memory worth keeping. Tony goes and stands with his wife, talking so quietly I can't make out a word. He does this a lot, and I've never quite understood how they manage to communicate successfully.

James smiles and bows, the gesture that excuses him from my company. He will head to the back of the house, to the printing press and his betrothed. I will go with Amelia for my daily round of tests.

==

Amelia takes the stethoscope away from my chest and makes a note on her pad, then turns back to me with a warm smile.

"Your heart sounds young and happy this day, She with no Name"

They don't know what to call me, and as I can't remember who I am I am referred to simply as "She with no Name" I've asked more times than I care to remember just to be given a name, any name...I really don't care. I'm stuck as a non-entity, as a stranger. It only serves to make me feel more alone, more isolated. Part of me thinks that is the point.

Amelia has a few tests remaining, and so I sit as she prepares her equipment to take a sample of my blood. Every day I do this, a set of now fairly meaningless checks. I am healthy; my leg will never repair successfully as I was already too badly injured when I arrived. This routine is more like a regime now, a way of quantifying my differences, of making a point of my singularity. Amelia, I think, enjoys the power it gives her over me.

"You asked Stephen to take you on a trip to the sea today?"

"I asked him but he refused. You have given him firm orders and he follows them well."

"We must let the parts of your mind that are lost return with you as they wish, and not to be pushed. You must regain your remembrance without the aid of others' thoughts and help"

"You have told me this many times"

"Still yet you deceive and lie that you do not know or you do not go, and both you have done"

"I do not belong here, all I wish is to leave"

"Leave to where?"

"Anywhere but West Haven"

Amelia laughs as she always does when we talk of this.

"There is only West Haven, this is all there is and was for us and for you, and is all that will be needed"

There's no point in talking about this any more. I'm too tired to argue in circles today. I sit back, close my eyes, and let her finish her examination.

==

Tonight is the weekly village congregation.

Jonathan first spends time talking about the village to the village, about those who deserve praise, and about how the community thrives together. When he is done there is a communal dinner, where every inhabitant of West Haven brings food or drink and it is eaten around a huge circular table. Each house owns their own section of this "great ring" and it is joined together to completely surround the village green. Stephen transports my section every week and puts it in its place, and as he does so tonight I unpack my weekly contribution. I make chocolate brownies, the same quantity every week. It is a recipe I found in a volume in the library in my second season: I can't understand any of the others in the manuscript. When I asked for the ingredients at the village shop I was told they had none of them, yet the next day the required items arrived in a box from the Overseer's house.

Now you can see why I think I'm going mad.

My place near the head of this giant table, with the other inhabitants who are allowed to wear colour. Tonight I chose a pale blue blouse and skirt with a dark blue wrap, something I have "adapted" from the standard range of clothing available at the village shop. The high hemline and low cut neckline draws outraged looks from some of those around the table: as if I need an excuse to be different...at least it varies the circumstances. Especially vicious is James' betrothed, who almost knocks me over as she carries her basket of fruit to the Overseer's for blessing. She has made it abundantly clear in the hugely roundabout fashion these people have that she thinks I am a bad influence and that I should be taken to the sea, and drowned. I'm not that keen on her either.

After the food is consumed the table is dismantled, and there is dancing. This is the best part of the evening, because I'm never really short of partners. The dances are simple affairs to slow and melodic tunes, which require an associate who needs only to walk you in time with the music. Because of my leg I go a little slower than the normal pace, but everyone is polite and accommodates me.

Tonight is a slow night, and I sit watching others walking through their steps. At this moment I'm more interested in the conversation behind me, as it's probably one of the most animated I've heard in all the time I've been here. James and his betrothed are arguing.

"I cannot think that you would be and spend so much time and thought with She with No Name and not with me"

I don't look around, but I know she will be standing with her hands on her hips, pouting at him as she always does. Jonathan has already crossed swords with his son tonight, but I am not quite sure about what. The Overseers son seems different this evening, but I can't put my finger on the change.

"She is alone here, there is no-one like her and I feel and know I must be kind to her. I now understand better than I ever did before what it is like to be an outsider here"

"I am aware of your bonds and your connections, James. You have a mark as she does; your eyes are dark like hers. You are much like her and I think you wish more to be inside her than you do me. She is a witch and a deceiver and she has stolen your heart, mind and sense"

He has a scar? I don't know of anyone else who is marked, there seems no need for operations or even medicines here, very few people ever get sick and I have never seen anyone ever die. James' betrothed is the only person I've ever heard wish ill on anyone else. I'm bothered by the word "witch", with my speech and my manners I must seem sometimes like a dangerous person...but to understand magic? I wish she were right, because if I were able I'd have cast a spell a long time ago and left here.

"I wish you to pledge yourself with the Speech of Love, tonight and now" She sounds at once upset, close to tears. "Your father has consented that the moment has come for our marriage and yet this night your mother has told my family and kin you will and have not accepted the offer as it has been given. Why do you now change your place with what was?"

James says nothing. I can see Tony and Christine approaching. Both are close friends of both parties, I wonder if they hope that by talking to them that further confrontation might be avoided. Part of me thinks this is too late to be saved, and that part wonders what James will do next, and whom he might turn to for comfort...

"You will not pledge yourself tonight and now?"

"I cannot pledge to you as I do not love and want you, and I have never felt so in the time we have been betrothed."

"You wish to be with the one who is not given a name because she is alone?"

"I do not wish to be here, I wish to leave West Haven"

Suddenly, everything stops: it's like someone has flicked a switch. I stare in amazement as the musicians stop their playing, their instruments frozen in mid verse. The villagers look confused: James' parents are staring in horror at their son. As I try to turn myself to look at the two of them behind me I can suddenly hear voices, sounds that don't belong here. I strain to try and understand what is being said but I can't make my mind focus, I'm incapable of processing the information.

There is a sound, a long high screech. Everyone covers his or her ears, deafened by the sudden blast of noise. My eyes hurt, and my ears complain. As the sound subsides and my vision clears I see James has gone. His betrothed stands, weeping openly, suddenly comforted by James' parents. It is a bizarre tableau, and looks strangely fake, almost posed.

It is as if James has vanished into thin air.

==

I have sent Mary away; I want some time tonight alone without the woman sneaking around my home. I sit in almost pitch-blackness, using a candle to write by. There is no electricity, nor is there any indication that there's ever been any in the village. Nobody can tell me how the lighthouse functions, but each night its light switches on and sweeps across the bay.

I write about the evening, about the argument and the sudden disappearance of James. I write the word "witch" and circle it, looking at the five letters and trying to convince myself that I'm not what she claims I am. I write everything down now in case my memory leaves me again, I am terrified that I might forget even more about myself than I already have. As I finish another page there is a gentle knock on the door. Nobody goes out at nights here, it's just not done. I know who it is, I sense James outside before I enter the hallway and open the front door.

He stands in the doorway, barefoot and soaked from head to foot.

"What happened?" I whisper, afraid that someone might hear me.

"I wished I was gone from here, and I found myself in the sea...so I decided I would try to swim away" He stands, looking at me, lost and wet.

"You appear to have failed."

"I couldn't do it. Not without you"

A breeze moves through me: a shiver across my heart, sudden and inexplicable.

His speech seems different somehow, there's almost no accent. I'm gripped with an overwhelming desire to hold him and take him by the hand, gently pulling him inside. As the door closes of its own accord the few candles I have lit all go out together: we're in complete darkness. I'm still holding his hand so I trace my way up his arm to his chest and begin to take off his shirt. He stands motionless as I do this, I can hear his breathing becoming more ragged as I work my way down to the last button. Feeling my way back up his chest I slip the sodden garment off his upper body: he wears a singlet underneath, which I grab with both hands and push upwards. He obliges by bringing his head down to meet me.

He smells of the sea and of something else, an aroma I can't place. As I put my hand on his now-bare chest I can feel a puckering of the skin, a ragged scar running across the bottom of his ribcage on his left hand side. He gasps, I think more from my touch than from pain and I look up to where I can only assume he is looking down on me.

"I'm not from here. They found me too, on the beach like you a long time ago."

A lot of things suddenly make sense.

I trace the line of the scar backwards and forwards with my index finger. I'm close enough now to put my forehead on the top of his chest, to move down and trace my tongue along the mark in turn. This time the gasp from him is from something else. I feel his hand on the back of my head: he almost grabs me in shock, but instead he tenderly strokes my hair. As I finish the trail with my tongue I feel his hand move down and across the back of my neck. With the gentlest of invitations he guides my head upwards.

Our lips meet and we're kissing without a word: the sudden passion between us stirs a vague memory. I stop and pull back, breathing hard. He puts his hand to my cheek; I can feel his concern without seeing his expression.

"I remember..." now I'm shaking, as something tangible dislodges in my brain, a fragment of my past in Technicolor. What the hell's Technicolor?

"What?" He's still so close that the question blows softly across my cheek. It's gone, what we had displaced with the kiss has moved away, slipped back down into inaccessibility. I'm so close now that I can see his eyes, wide and deep, looking straight into me.

"It's gone, when you kissed me I-"

He kisses me again, and this time I don't stop him. My mind is partly detached, trying to chase the phantoms in my brain but my body is responding as he puts his arms around my waist and places his hands on my behind, squeezing gently. I reach up and put my hands around his neck and push hard into him, so our bodies are as flush together as my breasts and his erection will allow. It's forever before we disentangle from each other.

"Do you remember?" He still holds me close, breathing into my hair as I struggle to grasp what my brain is trying to communicate. I have something, finally, from my past. A name.

"Evelyn."

My breath is catching in my lungs; I'm slowly losing the battle to remain coherent. "My name is Evelyn" James is smiling, I can feel it. He says my name and it sends a shudder straight through me. In the four seasons since I have been here no one has ever called me by a name, let alone my own. The arousal this causes is even more unsettling. The way he pronounces each syllable..."Ev-e-lyn": caressing the letters with his tongue and mouth...I'm about to lose most of my remaining composure.

"We should get you out of these wet clothes."

Bringing my arms down from his neck I put my hands on the small of this back, and run them around his waistband. I can hear his breathing shortening even further, and as my hands run across the front of his trousers he trembles. There is a lot there to get excited about, and I'm suddenly possessed with the need to strip him naked. "Let me do this" he says. I can unexpectedly sense embarrassment, so I step back and turn away, even though I can't see anything. I listen intently as he moves out of the wet material; I hear the slightly sodden thump as the trousers hit the floor.

Suddenly I'm not sure if I should turn around or not, and then one hand is on my shoulder, and his lips are pressed on the first vertebrae of my backbone. I close my eyes and exhale, as his other hand reaches around my front and up under my blouse. Before I know what's happened he's removed both it and my camisole in one swift upward movement, taking my arms with them. He holds my wrists together above my head as his free hand runs across the front of my breasts: I'm now desperate to turn around and press flesh to flesh. It seems like forever since I was this close to someone.

I turn, my arms still above my head, moving forwards until I feel his chest brushing my nipples. He now lets go of my arms and grabs me around the waist, and we are embracing again. Melting further into each other he puts his hands under my behind and scoops me up, and suddenly we're on the move. It occurs to me that the advantage of every house looking the same is that once you know your way around one in the dark, you know your way around them all. As he carries me upstairs, my legs naturally wrap around his waist. I'm picking up signals everywhere and my brain is throwing out fragments of my past like confetti, tiny images of places and feelings that I'm in real danger of suffocating under.

I snap back to the here and now and feel my back on the bed as James puts me down and begins to kiss my neck, working his way down my front and across my breasts in turn. I now can't work out where he stops and the memories start. I'm so close to him now and I know I always have been but I can't fathom out how or why. The feeling of the tip of his tongue inside my belly button an age later causes an almost blinding flash of recognition: I can see him, lying opposite me, and he's bleeding badly. My whole body convulses as if someone had passed an electric shock through it, and James yelps in surprise.

"What!" He almost screams as he recoils away. It's a little lighter in the bedroom and I can see him looking down on me with a mixture of terror and amazement.

"I don't know, It's gone...I...it was...we know each other, don't we?"

James suddenly sinks to his knees with a gasp, and a single tear runs down his cheek. I sit up on the side of the bed and remove the last of my now useless clothing, and then I kneel down beside him and take his hand. With his other hand he reaches to the ragged scar on the side of my leg and traces it with his finger as I did with his.

"I couldn't help you..." he's crying freely now, and I can feel tears beginning to form. I need to find out what happened, and there seems only one way to do so.

"We need to take this to its logical conclusion" I whisper to him, placing my hand on his stomach. "The more intense this becomes, the more I can remember..."

Our eyes meet. I remember standing in the dark with him before, a long time ago and somewhere else, and us holding each other for the longest time. He turns his body towards me and we're linked again by mouth, as he twists and pulls me up from the floor, and then picks up me and places me on the bed. As we link by sex I feel a jolt go through both of us, and suddenly I'm somewhere else. There's a pain in my chest and my upper body aches, but I can't respond, my lower body is beginning to blossom and the wave of urgency begins to roll towards me, the inward tide that I can't stop, even though I now stand like Canute knee deep in the water. The lighthouse's rays suddenly blind me and I'm back on the shore, where I can see a gap in the fog, a way through and away from this place, an escape...but there's too much water and suddenly I can't breathe and I know my heart stops beating in my chest as we climax simultaneously. The blood is rushing in my ears; I can't take in the sound of the seagulls, the sirens and the anxious voices or James calling my name, a million miles away.

All I can hear is my own heartbeat.

==

It is almost dawn, and I wake and look at him sleeping next to me. I have dreamt, further fragments I've been unable to comprehend. We are inextricably linked, him and I, our pasts and our futures woven together with the most unbreakable of threads. As we coupled and uncoupled twice more in the early hours of the morning I grabbed slivers of lives together: different existences, but a combined destiny. One image remained immovable and clear, and it is this that now pushes me to awaken him.

"James, I know the way out of here"

He looks at me sleepily, not quite understanding what I'm saying to him

"James, you can leave here now. I know the way, but we have to leave before the lighthouse switches off"

He's sitting upright now, and wide-awake.

"How?"

"You know your betrothed thought I was a witch? Well, I think she's right, I got a vision when we...the first time we came together I saw a gap in the fog. We need to go NOW"

He's already out of bed.

==

The trap stops as close to the shore as we can get. James helps me out and carries me across the small strip of bare sand to the jetty. I can see a boat moored a little way from us: in all the times I have been here I had never noticed a boat here before. As we get closer I see that we will not both fit in it together: it is a tiny boat, a coracle with a single oar. I already knew in my heart when I awoke that it was his time to leave and not mine...and I was correct. James stops and puts me down, and then looks at me. He is thinking quickly.

"I'll put you in the boat and I'll swim beside you, that way we can both make it through."

Standing here on the jetty I can see the hole that I caught a glimpse of in my vision: light pours in through the small chink like sand through an hourglass. Suddenly I feel a movement within me, a flutter in my belly. I grab onto his hand for stability.

"What's wrong?"

"Now I know that I can't go with you."

"You've wanted to be away from this place since you came here, what's stopping you now?"

"Our child"

Don't ask me how I know, I just do. This was only ever his way of leaving and never mine, I have to stay here. It's not yet time for me.

James is staring at me open-mouthed. I need to act fast, as dawn is rapidly approaching.

"Do you trust me completely and utterly?"

He nods. I take his other hand and stand in front of him, gazing deeply into his eyes.

"You have to go now, because when the town wakes up they won't remember you've even existed, you will never have come here. As soon as the sun hits the horizon and rises above me I won't remember you or this place, but I will carry your child within me until it is time for it to be born, and then you will come back for me and show me the way to leave. This isn't the way I can go from here, it's for you alone. Never forget that I will always love you, here and wherever you may be, and don't forget me when you leave this place. It is only you that can rescue me when the time comes"

The tears fall like rain down his face, but I know he understands. We kiss, briefly and passionately and then he is climbing down the ladder by the boat and settling in. In moments he is paddling across the bay towards the hole in the fog, and I watch until I can no longer see him or the boat, until he has vanished and the fog has closed up around him.

I am very tired now, and as the lighthouse's light silently switches off I lay down on the warm wood of the jetty to sleep.

==

This is where I always come back to.

I stand on the wooden jetty and look across the bay. The first rays of the morning sun are trying to pierce the early morning fog that hangs across the sea past the end of the lighthouse, but without success. If I had the strength and the time I might try and walk up there, I might finally attempt to reach the outer bounds of what has been for the last three months a prison. I suppose there are worse places to be incarcerated.

I look back across the marina, dotted with small boats and cruisers. The car is waiting for me at the entrance. Sam kills time, pacing backwards and forwards like a tethered horse. I know he risks his job by bringing me here, but I had to come, to see if by standing at this point where I always came to think before this all happened I'd be able to conjure some good memories of the past from the recesses of my brain. My luck with men has always drawn a stubborn blank, and the man responsible for this I'm sure is no different.

Sam looks at his watch and then to me. Even from this distance I can tell he's getting nervous, and so I think it's time we left. I'm not going anywhere, and neither is this place, and so there'll be another day. I start the process of returning towards the car, but it is slow going in this advanced state of pregnancy. Sam comes walking towards me and closes the distance between us in a matter of moments. He stops and looks disapprovingly at me over his glasses.

"You shouldn't be exerting yourself like this in your condition"

"I'm fine...I'm sorry I dragged you out here. I just wanted to see this place one more time, before I give birth. Thank you."

"Dr Bartlet will have my guts for garters if she finds out"

"I'm aware of that, and I won't let you be punished on my behalf"

"I really should get you back to the hospital"

"Take me back; if Dr Bartlet asks I'll say we spent some time walking here but I didn't venture too far"

Sam helps me back to the car. It takes a little time to get comfortable, and only when I'm safely inside does Sam go to the front seat and start the engine, as we both begin the drive back.

==

The West Haven Sanatorium is set in three hundred acres of Long Island countryside, and has long been an escape for those women of a certain social status who find themselves in embarrassing situations. There are two of us here in the last weeks of pregnancy: Claudia Jean Cregg, and myself. I know Claudia is the daughter of a prominent textile magnate, but that is the extent of my knowledge. She knows I am the disgraced mistress of a politician, and that's all that I'm prepared to give her. We spend our days together listening to the wireless, playing Gin Rummy and waddling around the grounds.

At nights I dream of him, I dream of my lover and the fact I am never likely to see him again. Our lovemaking is always tender and exciting in my dreams: I wake constantly in the early hours feeling sick and abandoned. As the baby moves within me it is a unvarying reminder of our elicit tryst: every day I promise myself and my child that I will spend the rest of my life trying to be a good mother and a friend to them. Even though we will be alone, without a father and a husband, we will have each other.

I am about to become a mother, and that is all that matters.

Claudia's lover visits today as he does every day. Tobias sits and talks with her, his driver Leo stands outside the room and waits patiently, looking as if he is on guard. They both come from New York: I know Tobias is Jewish and married to another woman. His business is valued in the millions: he was fortunate to survive the Wall Street Crash with as much as he did. The Depression has done strange things to people and to the country; I suppose it is good to know that love remains a constant, even though the arrangement is far from agreeable.

I sit here and contemplate another day. It is now less than two weeks before the baby is due, and a sense of calm has settled over me the last few days that I've not felt before. I believe that for the first time I'm actually ready in both mind and body to be a parent. I wonder if there will be any point where he might come: perhaps he will be moved to travel from Washington, the lure of his first child simply too great to resist. His wife is sterile, she may be blonde and stunning but she is not fertile...I am. I put my hand on my belly, feeling the familiar movement of my infant, taking reassurance from the bond.

I close my eyes and utter a silent wish, as I have done every day. I wish that Joshua were here.

The knock on the door stuns me back to reality: I'm not expecting anyone; the nursing staff don't do rounds or see me after lunch. Whoever it is, is a visitor, and not even my mother knows where I am right now. My heart is in my mouth...can it be possible? I open the door and he's here, standing in my doorway with orchids and a box of sugar violets. I look at him, and don't know what to say at all.

"Hello my darling..."

"You came back!"

"I left my wife and I'm going to start a new life with you..."

As the orchestral music swells behind us, he leans over and kisses me, a quick and delicate motion. I let him into the room and take the gifts from him, putting them on the small table next to the bed. As I turn around after closing the door he runs his hand across my belly, one swift and gentle movement that finishes under my breasts.

"My, but we've grown"

I recognise the look, it was the same look that got me in this mess in the first place. He pulls me towards him and we kiss, quick passion and force. He is obviously still obsessed by my breasts, larger than they ever have been, and he begins idly toying with them. Suddenly I feel a wave of desire, something unheard of in all these lonely and depressing months. I want him badly and I lean over, kissing him again. When we finally release it is he that is breathless.

"What about the baby? Surely if we-"

I put a finger to his lips. "It doesn't seem to affect Claudia Jean and her friend, they seem to be able to do most things unhindered. Anyway..."

This now doesn't feel right. The desire has gone, replaced by something else...a wave that starts in the small of my back and now breaks across my belly with a searing spike. I grasp my lower abdomen and tense. Joshua looks at me in alarm.

"What's wrong?"

"I think we're going to have to wait for our pleasure a while, this might be the beginnings of labour..."

==

I've been here for an hour, and it's almost time. Drs Bartlet and Bartlet are ready for delivery: Joshua sits with me, holding my hand. I'm feeling confident, but unusually drowsy. The room is full of sounds and smells, things I can't previously recall ever being in the hospital. They've bought my flowers in, the bunch of orchids that Joshua bought me. They smell divine.

"As soon as you're able you and I get to have a night out, that's a promise"

I look at him, a little confused. I hadn't noticed he'd changed into his pyjamas.

The female Dr Bartlet is at my elbow, smiling warmly.

"Okay, we're going to start pushing soon, I'll tell you when to start"

Everything is gradually getting farther away; the room stretches like taffy, clear and golden. I can abruptly hear other voices: CJ's is clear, but she's not here, she's outside. She smiled and waved as they wheeled me in here, it can't be her I can hear...and who's that now? Max is close by; I can smell the after-shave. I wonder if he's managed without a drink through all this. Actually, if truth were told I could do with a drink right now. I have this terrible pain in my throat...

==

Rosslyn.

Jesus, they shot him.

They shot me.

We're both still alive.

Someone's speaking to me, someone I don't know. A nurse, she must be a nurse, the uniform sets her apart from the highly emotional bunch crowding around the bed. Just how long have I been here?

"Well, good afternoon Evelyn, how are you doing? Can we have a bit of space around her please, poor girl's gonna suffocate"

No, people call me Evie; I'll tell her that just as soon as she gets this bloody tube out...

"Let's take that out, shall we?"

Thank you. That's better: now, do my vocal chords still operate?

"Evie" I hear myself say in a hoarse whisper, "Friends call me Evie"