Jerry watched as Jax finished the last of the eggs and then downed the remaining orange juice. Jax seemed to be eating like a condemned man, Jerry thought - and maybe that's exactly what he was - a man condemned living the rest of his life without the love of his life. Or a man condemned denying the reality of her death, Jerry thought sadly. At this point, Jerry wasn't sure which was worse.

Jerry's mind wandered back to the snippet of conversation he had overheard Jax having with someone on the phone just before breakfast: "... I want to spare no expense in finding her. I know that she's out there, and she's alive. She just needs me to find her..." Jerry's blood had literally run cold when he had heard Jax - talking with a private investigator, no doubt - making arrangements to scour the area for Brenda - not Brenda's body, but Brenda herself, alive and well. He had expected Jax to grieve and deal with the pain of Brenda's death, or grieve and try to deny the pain of her death, but he never dreamed that Jax would bypass the grieving process altogether by simply denying the reality of Brenda's death. His brother had been many things in his life, but delusional was never one of them, and this turn of events scared Jerry to no end.

Perhaps I misunderstood, he thought, trying desperately to rationalize what he had heard - or thought he had heard. He decided the only way to know for sure what was going on in Jax's mind right now was to get him to talk about things as they now stood.

"So, did you get some sleep last night?" Jerry asked, as he began clearing the table. "I mean, I know it was a rough night and all, but you look pretty good this morning, so I take it you were able to get some rest."

"Some," Jax replied, pouring himself another cup of coffee. "It was hard at first, but then once I got to sleep, I slept soundly. And when I woke up this morning, I knew what I had to do..." His voice trailed off as he took a sip of the coffee and stared out the window that overlooked Brenda's little garden, where the toppled birdbath, shattered by a large limb from a tree in the woods behind the garden, caught his attention. Must have been the storm, he thought. I'll have to replace it before Brenda gets home. She loved that birdbath...

Jerry waited for his brother to continue, but Jax seemed transfixed by something outside, so he prompted him impatiently: "Which is...?"

"Huh?" Jerry's voice brought Jax back into the moment. "I'm sorry, Jerry. What were you saying?"

Jerry leaned against the stove and folded his arms in front of him. "Actually, Jax, I was just wondering what you were saying." Jax's blank stare prompted Jerry to remind him. "You said that when you woke up this morning, you knew what you had to do. I wanted to know what that was you knew you had to do..." Please, say: 'make arrangements for Brenda's memorial service,' Jerry prayed silently, but his gut told him that that was the furthest thing from Jax's mind at this moment.

Jax set his cup down in the sink and turned to face Jerry. "Find Brenda," he said evenly.

That cold fear he had felt earlier tightened its grip on Jerry's heart. "You mean find Brenda's body?" He needed desperately for Jax to clarify that that was indeed what he meant.

But Jax's eyes took on the glint of hardened steel as he replied, "No, I mean 'find Brenda.'" He turned and left the kitchen and headed back upstairs, leaving a stunned Jerry in his wake.

Tom walked quietly into the main room of the cabin, fresh from a few hours of sleep and a shower. He looked down at "Angel," who was sleeping peacefully on the couch. Despite his best efforts to persuade her otherwise, Angel had insisted that Tom keep the bedroom and the bed, and that she remain on the couch. He felt funny about it - like it wasn't the 'gentlemanly' thing to do, and his mom would probably have scolded him for not insisting that she take the soft bed and let him use the couch, but she had been adamant. She had said that for some reason she felt a special affinity to couches. Tom wondered what in this woman's cloaked memory had prompted that little tidbit of information.

Charlie jumped up from his position on the floor by Angel's side, and ran to Tom, letting Tom know that it was time for him to go out. Charlie had rarely left Angel's side since they had found her, and when he did, it was only because nature called. "Okay, boy!" Tom whispered to Charlie, as he opened the cabin door to let the dog out. "Don't go too far, and don't be long!"

"And don't drag in any more drowned rats!" he heard from behind him. He turned to see Angel sitting up, and smiling at him with a smile that made the room glow.

Immediately Tom's face lit up. "You're up. I hope we didn't wake you...I mean, I tried to be as quiet as possible, but Charlie...Well, this is why you should have taken the bedroom, so you can get your rest...and we can still do that anytime you want..." Oh, God, Tom thought. I'm rambling again! Can't I have one intelligent sentence with this woman? She's going to think I'm a blathering idiot!

Tom's rambling and his apparent awkwardness made Angel smile even more. "It's okay, Tom. Nobody woke me. I just woke up because I was ready to wake up. And, as for the sleeping arrangements, I really do like the couch. I can't explain it - I just like couches, I guess!"

She giggled again, and Tom couldn't help but grin. Her laughter was contagious, and just being around her made him feel almost high. If he could bottle this feeling, he bet he'd make a fortune on the streets!

"How about something to eat? You didn't eat much earlier - just some tea and a cup of soup. I could make you a sandwich - do you like peanut butter and jelly?" Tom asked, as he began looking through the pantry for food.

"I honestly don't know!" she laughed. "Why don't you make me one, and I'll give it a try."

"Okay," he replied, as he began whipping up the PB&J sandwich, "and if you don't like it, I know Charlie will!"

"Well, if Charlie likes it, then I know I'll like it!" she answered.

"Well, Charlie's not exactly a connoisseur when it comes to cuisine. He likes to munch on road kill every chance he gets!"

"Ooooh! How gross!" she laughed. "I'll be sure to make him rinse his mouth before I let him lick me again!"

Tom stood looking at her, completely enthralled by her - her beauty, her ease with him and Charlie, her wit. He felt as if he could have died and gone to heaven himself, but instead God had seen fit to send heaven down to earth just for him, Tom Langan. But as he handed Angel the plate with the sandwich and a tall glass of milk, he began to see the first cracks in his heavenly scenario of Angel and him and Charlie together forever - there on the ring finger of her left hand was the most beautiful - and most expensive - ring Tom had ever seen, and he had the distinct feeling that it hadn't been given to her as a friendship ring. His Angel definitely belonged in another man's heaven - and he was a rich man at that!

Jerry had just returned to the living room after cleaning up the kitchen and starting yet another pot of coffee, when he heard a determined knocking at the cottage's front door. Gerard's fury had pretty well subsided by now, but it was still raining heavily. Jerry wondered whom it was who had braved the treacherous country road to trek out here in this. He opened the door to find his parents huddled beneath an inverted umbrella.

"Mum! Dad! Get in here before you're soaked through!" He shut the door behind them, as they tried to shake off the excess water from their coats before handing them to Jerry. "I thought you were waiting out the storm to come." He laid their coats on a chair and then hugged them both.

"We couldn't wait any longer, Son," John said. "So we flew into Pennsylvania - Scranton to be exact - and rented a limo from there. It was just barely raining in Pennsylvania. Nothing like what you've had here. I think we will have to give the bloody limo driver double what I promised him because he performed above and beyond the call of duty by braving some of the things we've seen today!"

Lady Jane was impatient with the small talk, and needed to cut right to the heart of everyone's concerns. "How is he, Jerry?" she asked. Jerry's pained expression and momentary hesitation spoke volumes. "He's not good, is he, Son?"

Jerry shook his head. "No, Mum, he's not. Before I go into all of that, there is more about all of this I didn't ... I couldn't...tell you over the phone." He paused, wondering if this was his news to tell or if Jax should be the one to tell their parents. He thought about his brother's state of mind and decided that he needed to tell them, so that they could fully understand what had triggered Jax's current response to the situation. "Mum, Dad, I think we all need to sit down before I go on."

John and Jane exchanged fearful looks, but complied with Jerry's request as they both sat on the couch waiting for Jerry to continue. Jerry sat on the arm of the loveseat, diagonally to his parents, and took a deep breath. "After the search for Brenda was officially called off, and Jax and I returned here, Jax found out something that made Brenda's death even more painful for him."

Jane swallowed hard, sensing what Jerry was about to tell them. "Go on, Jerry..."

"When we got back here, there was a message on Brenda's machine from her doctor's office about her blood test..." Jerry continued.

"The genetic test results?" John interrupted.

"No," Jerry shook his head. "Those results won't be in for another week or so. The doctor had run another test on Brenda, and the results were positive... Brenda was pregnant... Jax just found out last night, and Brenda never even knew."

Jane gasped, and John took her hand gently in his. Tears ran down her cheeks as she thought of the doubly devastating loss this was to Jax - to all of them. "Where is he?" Jane asked.

Jerry nodded toward the upstairs. "He's up in her room now, but there's more..."

"More! What more terrible things can there possibly be!" John exploded. "Jax lost both Brenda and their unborn child in one horrifying moment!"

"John, please...we're all upset. Let Jerry finish telling us everything so that we can go about helping Jax as best we can." Jane's calm voice masked the inner turmoil she was feeling. But she knew she needed to be the voice of reason now, even if she wanted to rage right along with John. "Jerry, tell us everything."

Jerry swallowed, wondering how to phrase this in such a way as to not completely frighten his parents. "Jax is not accepting any of this.."

John interrupted Jerry again. "Well, it's bloody well beyond human comprehension! It's more than any man should have to bear! He must be devastated!"

Jerry stood. "No, Dad, you don't understand. JAX IS NOT ACCEPTING THAT BRENDA IS DEAD! He went to bed last night, understandably upset and grieving for her and the baby because he knew they were gone. But when he got up this morning, he was all calm - he had decided that she's not dead, and that she's just out there somewhere waiting for him to find her."

"Oh, Lord!" John whispered.

Jane got up and headed toward the stairs. "I'm going to see him."

"I'm coming, too." John stood to follow her, but was stopped by Jane.

"No, John. Let me see him and talk with him first, and then you can have your time with him. There are some things a son can share with his mother at a time like this, that he might not be able to tell his father," Jane offered quietly, as she wiped the tears from her eyes.

"Okay, Mother. I'll wait here with Jerry until Jax is ready to see me." John hugged her, and then let her go on to Jax alone.

Jane found Jax just where Jerry had said he'd be - in Brenda's room, sitting on the bed, surrounded by what appeared to be pictures of Brenda. She stood quietly at the door for several minutes, watching intently as Jax, his back to her, wrote furiously in a book of some sort. He was hunched over it, like he did as a child when he wanted to protect his innermost thoughts from Jerry's prying eyes. Suddenly he looked more like her gangly seven-year-old son who was always raiding the cookie jar, than her strong and strapping twenty-seven year-old son who regularly raided companies, and her heart broke all over again at the magnitude of the horror that had hit him. She took a deep breath, and then knocked gently on the open door.

Jax looked up, and was surprised to see his mother standing in the doorway. "Mum, what are you doing here?" he asked, as he got up off the bed to greet her.

"Where else would I be now?" Jane ran in and met Jax halfway, enveloping him in her arms. "I am so sorry, Jax." Then she pulled away from him slightly and looked at him more closely. "How are you, Son?"

"Mum, I'm fine. Everything's going to be fine." He moved the pictures to make room for his mother on the bed.

Jane picked up a picture of Brenda from one of her 'Jacks for Men' ads, and sighed, "Brenda was so beautiful - inside and out, and John and I loved her as if she were our own. We will all miss her so much."

"She's not really gone," Jax said quietly, picking up another picture of Brenda, this one a snapshot of her on the Isabella, and gazing at it lovingly.

Jane looked up sharply at him, her breath catching in her throat. Lord, help me handle this right, she prayed silently. "Of course, she's not really gone, Jax," she began quietly, gently taking Jax's hand in her own. "She'll never be gone because she'll always be in our hearts and in our memories."

"No, Mum, she's not dead. I know it!" He shot up off the bed and walked to the window, where he pulled back the gauzy curtains and pointed to the horizon. "She's out there somewhere - and she's alive. I know it! She just needs for me to believe and to find her."

Jane walked up behind him and put her hands on his shoulders. "I know how hard this is to accept, Jax, but you have to accept it. Jerry said that with the storm conditions last night, it would take a miracle for anyone to have survived."

Jax looked from the window back to his mother, and smiled. "I think that if anyone could work a miracle, it would be Brenda."

Jane smiled gently and hugged Jax to her again. "She was something, wasn't she?"

"She IS something!" Jax corrected her.

Jane closed her eyes, and sighed, deciding not to press that further. She looked down at the pile of pictures on the bed. "Are you selecting pictures to be displayed at Brenda's memorial service?"

"There's not going to be a memorial service because Brenda's not dead!" Jax said, his voice rising slightly. "These pictures are for the agency I've hired to find her. I wanted casual and formal pictures so they could be familiar with all of the different Brendas I know." He fingered the photo in his hand, reverently touching the image of Brenda's face that smiled up at him.

Jane's heart was ready to burst now. How could she reach him? "Jax, I know how much you want to believe that she survived last night, but you have to be logical. The police and the search and rescue people all abandoned the search. They would not have done that if they had thought that there was any possibility that she was still alive. It is their business to know these things."

"And it's my business to know Brenda!" Jax shot back. He saw his mother's surprise at his outburst, and he apologized, "I'm sorry, Mum. I know in my head that I should accept that Brenda is dead, but in my heart, I know that she's still alive. Don't ask me how I know that, I just do."

He picked up the Malibu picture of Brenda and him that he had slept with the night before, and he held it to his heart. "Dad taught me to trust my head in business, and that has served me well; but you were the one who taught me to trust my heart in everything else, and that has never steered me wrong. I trusted what my heart was telling me in Malibu, and I accepted Brenda's proposal, and that was the right thing to do. Had I let my head tell me what to do then, I would have allowed all of her past mistakes to cloud the issue, and I would never have let her back into my life. I would have lost her, just as surely as I will lose her now if I don't follow my heart and look for her. I know I'm right, Mum. I'm sure of it!"

Jane gave Jax a long look, and realized that Jax was not delusional at all, just determined, as he had always been. He was right: one had to follow one's heart, and if Jax's heart was telling him that Brenda was alive, then who was she to try to dissuade him of that? She gave him a warm smile and then hugged him. "You do what you have to do, Jax, and the family will support you no matter what."