Angel had been very nauseated and unusually tired most of the day, and so she had not been at all upset when Tom had said he needed to take care of business in some town a couple of hours' drive from there, because it had given her the opportunity to just laze around without arousing Tom's overprotective nature. If he had even suspected that she was not feeling well, he would have been clucking over her like a mother hen, whether the situation warranted it or not. She smiled as she thought of how sweet and attentive Tom had been to her, and she wondered how she would ever be able to repay him once she was well enough to leave.

Leave...She knew she had to do that eventually, but the question was for where? She still had no idea who she was, or where she was from. Was there somewhere out there that she belonged, and was there someone out there with whom she belonged? When she was awake she felt comfortable here in this cabin with Tom and Charlie, but in her dreams, she knew she belonged with "him"...

She had begun having the dreams from the beginning. They were vague at first...just jumbles of sights and sounds and even smells...but lately they had become more focused - and they were always about "him." She could never remember his face when she awoke, but in her dreams she knew "him" so well, and she knew that she loved "him" with everything she had.

She looked down at the ring on her finger, and she sighed. She had never said anything to Tom about the ring, and, for some reason, he had never mentioned it to her either, but she was sure he had noticed it. It was hard to miss. It was a beautiful, large, red-blue stone of some type, and it looked very old - and most likely very expensive - and she was sure that fact would most likely catch anyone's attention. But when she looked at it, all she saw was love. She couldn't explain it, but that is the overwhelming feeling that she got when she looked at it. And since "he" most likely gave it to her, then she was sure that "he" loved her as much as she loved "him" - whoever "he" was. That was what had haunted her dreams from the beginning, and now was beginning to haunt her waking moments, as well.

In fact, she had begun to wonder if her general feeling of malaise these days was connected in some way with her dreams and her attempts to try to push to remember "him" and herself as well. Was she pushing herself too hard, and was her body fighting her mind on this and making her sick? Or was she simply not fully recovered from her near-death experience? She didn't know. All she did know was that she hoped this passed soon because she really did not want to worry Tom with any of this because she knew it would make him crazy. So she had taken a hot bath earlier, hoping that the soak in the bubbles would make her feel better - and it had, while she was in it. But as the water cooled and she attempted to get up and out of the tub, she had felt dizzy and nearly passed out. She regained her equilibrium momentarily, but the experience had scared her. She hoped that she would have no more episodes like that.

She saw Charlie jump up, bark once, and head to the door, indicating that Tom was pulling into the driveway. "Did you miss him, Charlie? Well, so did I! Let's get the door!" But as she stood to go to open the door, she experienced another dizzy spell and had to sit back down on the couch, her head lowered between her knees, while she took several slow, even breaths to get some oxygen to her brain again. Luckily, she was able to regain her composure and paste on a smile by the time Tom opened the door.

"Hi!" she said, her voice wavering slightly. "How was the trip?" The twinkle in Tom's eyes and the smile on his face were all the answers she needed. "Successful, I take it!" she laughed.

"Very! And I got some surprises for you while I was there," Tom said, as he slowly pulled a single, red rose from out behind his back and offered it to her.

Her eyes misted, as she took it from him. "Tom, this is so sweet...what is this for?"

Tom smiled at her again, and answered, "It reminded me of you - you are both natural beauties." He saw Angel blush slightly at his compliment, and then she surprised him with a quick kiss to his left cheek. Now it was Tom's turn to blush, as he wondered what kind of response the other eleven roses in the car might elicit, as he gave them to her, one-by-one, at various stages throughout the evening. His blush deepened as his mind suddenly saw the evening culminating in a marathon of gentle lovemaking in his rose-petal-covered bed. Quickly he tried to push that thought back into the recesses of his mind, because that mental image was causing his body to have a few physical changes in addition to the flush on his cheeks, and he was not ready to let Angel know how much he wanted her - not just yet. "Um.... I got some great fixings for dinner tonight. I'm making pasta prima vera, and a simple side salad, and I picked up some wine also. And since neither of us knows if you like any of those...Voila!" He pulled a large jar of Jif creamy peanut butter out of the bag of groceries he had set on the table, and Angel burst out laughing. "...I bought this just in case, because I know you like peanut butter!"

"Well, it's just that you make the best peanut butter and jelly sandwich that I have ever tasted!" Angel laughed, intentionally poking fun at her lack of memory about everything, including her favorite foods. "You did remember to get more milk, didn't you?"

Tom pulled a gallon of skim milk out of the bag also. "Of course! Can't have PB&Js without a large glass of ice cold milk to wash it down, now can we?" Angel nodded as she continued to laugh, and then Tom added. "Now, do I know my girl, or do I know my girl?!"

As soon as Tom had said that, he had instantly regretted the "my girl," and he tried to change the subject as quickly as possible. "I picked up a CD player while I was gone also, and some CDs. I thought we could use some music around here. I didn't know what kind of music you might like, so I picked some that I thought would be nice." ...And would lend ambiance to the evening ahead, he added silently to himself.

Angel smiled at him again. "I'm sure whatever you picked out will be perfect." She looked at the groceries, which were now strewn across the countertop of the kitchen area of the cabin. "Do you want me to put those away?"

"No, I plan to use all of these as soon as I take a quick shower and get dressed. I thought we'd get dressed up for the evening. How does that sound to you?"

Angel shot him a puzzled look. "Dressed up? Um...Tom, which of my three outfits do you consider my most formal wear? Either pair of my jeans, or my clothes that I was wearing when you rescued me - which seem to have shrunk from my time in the river!"

Tom went out to the front porch and came back in with the red bag, bearing the logo 'Michel's Boutique, Port Charles,' and handed it to her. "I hope you don't mind, but I thought this might be something you might like to wear for tonight."

She took the bag from him and pulled the black dress out of it, slowly fingering the silkiness of the material as she did so. She looked up at Tom and there were tears in her eyes, "It's so beautiful...but why..?"

Tom cut her off, "Because you're a beautiful woman, and I thought you might like to wear something almost as beautiful as you, for a change." She continued to gaze at him with gratitude in her eyes, but which Tom mistook as love, and his heart soared.

"You are so amazing, Tom Langan!" she cried as she shot to him and hugged him fiercely. "First you save my life, and now you've made it a point to constantly fill my life with incredible surprises. I don't know what my life was like before, but you are making it so wonderful now. I don't know how I'll ever be able to repay you... I love you so much!" And for the second time in less than ten minutes, she kissed him on the cheek.

She had meant the kiss and the "I love you" as a friendly gesture, but in Tom's infatuated mind, she had just declared that she felt for him what he felt for her, and he thought he would float away. His instincts told him that this would be a night that neither of them would ever forget. And his instincts would be right, although it would not be a night that either of them could ever have imagined.

Jax sat in a booth in the restaurant of the Pine Cone Motel and Restaurant, and waited for the waitress to bring him some water and a menu. He glanced around the room and saw that there were just a handful of other diners here, and most of those appeared to be locals with families who had come for tonight's advertised special: "all the spaghetti you can eat, for $5.95, including unlimited salad bar." The room was relatively small, but bright, and the decor was reminiscent of '70's nostalgia, although Jax had the distinct feeling this place had the "authentic" '70's look because the building was built circa the '70's, and most likely that was the last time it was decorated. The place was awash in pale lime green and orange hues. There were even lava lamps on each of the tables here in the dining area. Jax felt like he was trapped in a time warp! His room in the motel had the same feel and color scheme. Jax had settled into room 12 of the Pine Cone Motel, and had found it much as Tom had described it: nothing fancy, but clean and comfortable - the overpowering '70's theme, notwithstanding!

As he thought of Tom, Jax smiled and wondered how his night of seduction was progressing. He had only met Tom briefly, but the man had made a definite and lasting impression on Jax, for some reason. Tom was a good-looking man, and he had the kind of personality that seemed to make people instantly like him. Jax knew he had liked him immediately. Tom was funny and highly intelligent, but there seemed to be a lack of self-confidence about him - at least where women were concerned - or that was the impression Jax had gotten. When Jax had indicated that he was aware of the romantic night Tom had planned, Tom had suddenly seemed awkward and shy. Jax wondered if he was just naturally shy about women, or if he just was so in love with this one particular woman, that it was too personal to share with someone else - especially a total stranger. A little of both, Jax guessed.

The waitress finally appeared with Jax's water and a menu, and he decided to forgo tonight's special and opted for a hamburger and fries instead. He knew it was full of fat, but it just sounded good tonight. Brenda would have a fit if she knew! he thought. If she knew...his face saddened as he again began to wonder where she was and what she knew. He no longer feared that she was dead; since his epiphany earlier in the evening, Jax had no doubt that she was alive. Now he just prayed that she was safe and not alone, and that whoever was caring for her was giving her the love and attention she deserved.

Tom had showered, shaved, and was dressed in a suit and tie, thanking heaven that he kept an extra suit in a garment bag in his car at all times in case of unexpected Bureau business. (The Bureau frowned on their agents going to official meetings dressed casually.) He had splashed on some "Tommy!" cologne he had picked up for himself on his trip to Port Charles. The woman at the counter at Windham's Department Store had assured him that women would love him if he wore that, but Tom was only interested in one woman loving him.

He checked around the room to make sure everything was perfect, as Johnny Mathis's creamy, smooth voice crooned in the background. He had set the table with candles, and a couple more of the roses he had gotten for Brenda, and he had the vegetables cooked and the pasta simmering. The only lights in the room came from the fire in the fireplace and the candles on the mantle and on the table, giving the room a romantic softness that he had never dreamed possible. The wine was chilled, the salad made, and all that was missing was Angel.

As if on cue, the door to Tom's room opened, and Angel emerged wearing the dress and shoes that Tom had gotten her and still carrying the first rose he had given her. Tom's heart nearly stopped at the sight of her. In all of his thirty-one years, he had never seen anything more beautiful than Angel. And he knew that she indeed had to have been sent from heaven, because nothing produced here on earth could ever be so beautiful as she was at that very moment.

She was a vision. The dress fit her like it had been made for her. The thin, spaghetti straps accented her delicate shoulders and the fitted bodice hugged her rounded breasts and tiny waist like a well-fit glove. The skirt of the dress flared out slightly at her hips and ended just above her knees, allowing a generous view of her shapely legs, and the shoes that the saleswoman at Michel's Boutique had helped him to get for the outfit complimented the dress perfectly. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, and the glow from the candles and the fireplace lent a surreal quality to her translucent skin, and Tom really did feel he was in the company of a heavenly visitor.

He swallowed hard, trying to get some moisture back into his suddenly dry mouth. "You are so..." Tom hesitated, searching for the right word to describe how she looked right then, but there was no word adequate to describe her, so he simply said, "...beautiful!"

She smiled shyly at him. "Thank you," she said simply. She looked around the room and seemed surprised. "This is beautiful, Tom. I can't believe you've gone to all of this trouble!" She walked over to the table and gently touched the roses there.

"It's no trouble," Tom reassured her. "This is something I wanted to do. This is a celebration tonight."

She looked at him quizzically, "What are we celebrating?"

Tom smiled at her warmly, "We are celebrating life, and all that it holds!"

"Well, I know I certainly have reason to celebrate that!" she laughed, and then she held up her empty wineglass and offered a toast: "To life!"

Tom picked up the bottle of wine, opened it, and moved to pour some into Angel's glass, but the sweet smell of the wine made Angel slightly nauseous, so she withdrew her glass from him. "Um...would it be okay if I just have a little water for now?" When she saw the surprised look on his face, she added, "Maybe I'll have a little wine after dinner, if that's okay."

Tom's face softened at that. "Sure! No problem! Water, it is." He took her glass from her and filled it with cold water, then he held out her chair for her, and in an exaggerated English accent he said, "Milady, dinner is served!" as Angel giggled uncontrollably.

The dinner went well, although Tom noted that Angel ate very little. When he questioned her about that, Angel fibbed and told him that she had gorged on a PB&J just before he had returned. She didn't want Tom worrying about her growing queasiness, especially not then, when he had gone to so much trouble to make the night so wonderful.

During the meal, Tom told her tales of his visits to the cabin through the years, and the changes that had been made to the place. She laughed as he told of his childhood antics involving some of the locals, including some guy named "Ed," who now owned and operated the service station where Tom had his car repaired. She smiled at the look of happiness that he got as he shared all of his memories with her, but she felt a twinge of sadness that her past was locked away from her, and that she knew nothing of her life, except that "he" had been her life, and now "he" was lost to her.

Finally, Tom noticed that Angel had grown quiet. "Are you sure you've had enough?" he asked, as he began to clear the table and she blew out what was left of the candles.

"Yes, thank you," she nodded, picking up the salad bowl and heading toward the kitchen counter.

"Well, it's just that it's always been my family's motto that nobody leaves the table hungry!" he laughed.

["Nobody leaves!"] The words hit her like a lightening bolt, and she suddenly felt dizzy. She grabbed for something - anything - to steady herself, but she couldn't reach anything. ["Nobody leaves!"] - it echoed in her head as the darkness enveloped her and she fell to the floor, sending the salad bowl and leaves of arrugala, romaine, and water cress sailing in all directions, and startling Charlie, who had been sleeping nearby.

Tom turned at the sound of the bowl hitting the floor and Charlie's barking, and saw Angel just as she hit the floor. "Angel!' he yelled, grabbing her into his arms. Her skin was cold and clammy, and he could see she was a deathly gray, even in this light. Her breathing was rapid and shallow, and her pulse racing. "Oh, God!" he murmured as he scooped her up in his arms and raced for the car. Suddenly, he was more scared than he'd ever been in his life, and he prayed harder than he had since the night she had first come into his life. She had become the center of his world in the short time he had known her, and he wasn't about to lose her now! He laid her unconscious body into the back seat of his car, and then jumped into the driver's seat and raced off to the nearest medical facility, praying that God didn't have plans to reclaim this angel as His own.

Jax lay in the bed of his room at the Pine Cone Motel, staring up at the small water stain on the ceiling tile directly above his head. He was exhausted from the day's events, but he couldn't seem to fall asleep, despite his comfortably full stomach. His meal in the restaurant had been surprisingly good. In fact, it had to have been one of the best burgers he'd ever had in his life. Tom had certainly been right on the money about this place.

Tom...No matter how hard he had tried, for some reason Jax couldn't seem to get Tom and "his special evening" out of his mind. He kept wondering if this virtual stranger was making it "around the bases," or had even made it up to bat. Sheesh! How sophomoric is this! Jax reprimanded himself. He felt like he was a teen again, lying in bed alone wondering if his buddies, who were out on dates, were scoring. But despite his best efforts to concentrate on other things - such as the water stains on the ceiling tiles - the thoughts about Tom and his lady kept popping into his head, so Jax decided to quit fighting it, and just go with it. He began to fantasize about Tom and his lady, but for some reason whenever he tried to give Tom's lady a face, it was always Brenda's face he saw. He sighed at the thought of Brenda, and he suddenly felt sorry for Tom because he knew that, no matter how wonderful Tom's lady was, she would never compare to his Brenda. And he finally drifted off to sleep with that thought in his mind.

Tom broke every traffic law on the books for the state of New York, but he didn't care. He had to get Angel some help - and fast! The best emergency room in the area was General Hospital in Port Charles, but that was nearly a two-hour drive, and Tom was afraid to risk it, so he had opted instead for the Urgent Care clinic in nearby Carlisle, which was thirty minutes away. He checked her breathing in the rearview mirror several times during the drive, and it still appeared to be far too rapid and far too shallow for his liking. He berated himself for not seeking medical care for her immediately after the storm. Instead he had allowed his hubris as well as his libido to get in the way. His pride in his having saved her and her apparent rapid recovery blinded him to the fact that she most likely did have lingering after effects from her near-death experience. And his love for her and his fear that someone would "claim" her from him had blinded him as well. At that moment, Tom Langan hated himself more than he ever thought possible.

Tom managed to get them to the Carlisle Urgent Care Center in less than twenty minutes. "I need help now!" he shouted, as he burst through the front doors carrying the still unconscious Angel in his arms.

A woman in a pink uniform leaned over the desk, and frowned at him, "Hold it down, mister! There are sick people here ahead of you, and we will get to you as soon as possible."

Tom glared at her as he barreled past her, "I said I need help NOW!! Get me a doctor pronto!" He found an empty cubicle and gently laid Angel on the waiting gurney.

The woman in the pink uniform, whose nametag read "Ms. J. Gannon, Ward Clerk," ran in closely behind him. "Mister, you can't just bring patients into the cubicles like this. We have procedures we have to follow. You need to take her back to the staging area, and ..."

Tom had had all he could take at this point. "I don't give a damn about your procedures, Ms. J. Gannon, Ward Clerk! " He whipped his FBI badge out of his pocket and flashed it in front of her face. "I'm with the freaking FBI, and this is a freaking emergency, and I want a doctor in here now!"

Ms. Gannon's eyes grew round as saucers, and she gasped as she saw Tom's official badge. "Yes, sir. Right away!" she whispered hoarsely, as she ran out of the cubicle and down the hall to get the nearest doctor.

Tom looked down lovingly at Angel, who still had not regained consciousness. He pressed his lips gently against her forehead, and whispered, "Everything's going to alright now, Angel. I promise that I will make everything right for you."

As his lips grazed her forehead, Angel's eyes fluttered open. "Tom?" she mouthed weakly. "What happened?"

Tom felt a wave of relief wash over him as he saw her beautiful eyes open again. "You passed out. I brought you to see the doctor. Everything's going to be okay now. Don't worry."

"I'm sorry I ruined the evening," she said weakly.

Tom brushed her hair away from her face and smiled, "You could never ruin anything, don't you know that?" Angel smiled up at him, and despite her obvious pallor, Tom couldn't believe how beautiful she was. He took her hands in his and kissed them.

Just then a tall, bespectacled man dressed in green scrubs pulled back the privacy curtains that surrounded the cubicle. "Hi. I'm Dr. Mooney. Ms. Gannon said that you needed a doctor right away." He wondered about the sight he had just walked in on, since Jo had said that this guy was FBI, and this patient was a felon or a witness or something. "What seems to be the problem?"

Tom spoke up, "Angel just passed out. We had just had dinner and everything was fine, and then she just passed out... She nearly drowned a couple of weeks ago. Could this be something to do with that?"

"Could be...Let's take a look, okay, Angel?" He looked down at Angel, and then back to Tom. "Are you her husband?"

"No," Tom replied.

"Well, in that case, I'll have to ask you to wait out in the waiting area." Dr. Mooney said pointedly.

Tom nodded and bent to kiss Angel's cheek, and then motioned his head toward Dr. Mooney. "He'll know where to find me if you need me." Angel gave him another smile, and Tom left for the waiting area, which turned out to be across the hall from the desk occupied by Ms. J. Gannon, Ward Clerk. She gave Tom a wide-eyed stare as he passed by, and he just grunted at her, which seemed to scare her even more.

Tom settled back in one of the padded chairs that lined the waiting area and let out a long sigh. When he had envisioned all the various ways that this night might turn out, he certainly had never envisioned this as a part of the scenario. Derisively, he laughed out loud, which drew Ms. Gannon's surprised attention back to him, so he gave her a stilted smile, and she quickly looked away.

He took a deep breath, and gave another quick prayer for Angel's recovery, then looked around for something to read to help pass the time and to try to get his mind off what was happening with Angel. He looked through the stacks of magazines on the tables in the area, and laughed, wondering why every medical facility he had ever been in always had only outdated reading material for its patients and their visitors. He searched through the dates of the magazines piled there, and finally found the most recent one in the place - a "People," dated July 20, 1998 - and began flipping absently through the pages.

Suddenly, a familiar face on one of the pages caught his attention as he flipped past it. He held his breath as he retraced the pages back to the one containing the picture of the face he thought he recognized. Slowly he exhaled, as there, staring up at him was the beautiful face of his Angel- whose real name was Brenda Barrett, model and record executive - and there, staring lovingly at her, was her fiancé, Jasper Jacks, billionaire wunderkind - who bore an uncanny resemblance to his hitchhiker of this afternoon. Tom slumped forward in his chair, as he felt the cracks that had begun to appear in his fantasy world the day he had noticed her ring, deepen and completely shatter his dream altogether.