Grace gripped Sam’s shoulders tightly, sobbing her heart out.

Her daughter, Charity’s cousin, hated her.

HATED her.

Kay actually thought that she, Grace Bennett, Harmony’s Mother of the Year for the last six consecutive years, did not give a da…darn about her. She’d called her a bit…b-word that rhymed with witch.

Grace had never heard such filthy talk, and if her devastation weren’t so great, so tremendous, Grace would wash Charity’s cousin’s mouth out with some Irish Spring.

But she was stunned. Stunned so badly not even a nice, yummy Tomato Soup Cake could ease her heartache.

Only one thing would help her, she thought as her tearful blue eyes scanned the bulletin board several feet away.

Grace Bennett needed to go to another meeting.

Charity slumped over in her wheelchair, her blue eyes searching every dark corner of the hospital’s halls for evil.

Evil lurked everywhere.

Evil was out to destroy hers and Miguel’s love for each other.

“Charity, are you okay?” Miguel leaned over her shoulder to whisper in her ear.

Charity’s lips lifted into a syrupy smile, and her voice was as sticky-sweet as molasses as she scratched absently at the irritated, red scar along her chest. “Miguel. It’s just a heart transplant. Dr. Russell said there’s no reason I shouldn’t be back to my normal self with your love to make me strong.”

Miguel gave his girlfriend a self-important grin. His love. His love would restore Charity’s strength in no time. “I love you, Charity.”

“Oh, Miguel,” Charity sighed happily. “I love you more. I can’t wait to show you how much.”

Miguel resumed pushing her wheelchair down the hall, and Charity beamed when she saw her aunt Grace standing just outside the cafeteria.

“Charity,” Grace greeted her with a careful hug, glad to have this opportunity to further bond with her favorite niece. “I’m so glad you’re here. The meeting’s about to start. Miguel,” Grace turned to the young man behind Charity’s wheelchair. “You’re welcome to join us. I’m sure Charity would love the support.”

“Yes, Miguel,” Charity cocked her head to the side, offering her boyfriend a slow smile. “I’d like you to come. You know more about me than I know about me,” she batted her lashes shyly.

Grace took the wheelchair from Miguel and started pushing Charity inside, leaving Miguel to follow them.

Miguel’s jaw fell to the floor when he barely avoided a head-on collision with a ghost.

Sheridan’s death grip on her oversized purse never let up as Luis pulled her out of his little brother’s path.

No one came between Charity and Miguel. His kid brother followed the eccentric but sweet blond around like a lost puppy.

“Sheridan? Is that really you? Luis, what’s going on here?” Miguel asked absently, his brown eyes following Grace and Charity’s progress as they made their way to the front of the rapidly filling cafeteria.

Who knew there were so many amnesiacs in Harmony?

“It’s a long story,” Sheridan sighed, her blue eyes looking worried. “I don’t even know why I’m here,” she admitted, glancing around.

“You know why,” Luis practically growled. “For the past year, you’ve lived this whole other life as Diana on some island with my deadbeat brother.”

“Luis?” Miguel’s attention snapped back to his older brother. “I know I never come home, but I love Charity. She’s my life. You see me two hours a week…”

“Only two hours?” Sheridan looked at the younger Lopez-Fitzgerald in surprise before scowling back at Luis. “Brian’s not a deadbeat, Luis. He’s going to pay Liz back.”

“Miguel, this isn’t about you. This is between me and Sheridan. Why don’t you go check on Charity?” Luis suggested, turning his attention back to his fiancee. “Who’s Liz? For the last time…his name is not Brian. It’s Antonio, and he IS a deadbeat. My brother’s nothing but a phony. I don’t believe that he didn’t know who you were. He just didn’t want to lose you himself, Sheridan. I still can’t believe you slept with him.”

“I had amnesia, Luis,” Sheridan groaned into her hands. “You knew exactly who you were when you slept with Beth.”

“For the last time, Sheridan. I forgot all about Beth. I promise I was going to tell you. The whole thing with you…and my brother…she just totally slipped my mind,” Luis explained for what felt like the hundredth time.

“Well, it seems to me,” Sheridan’s blue eyes flashed angrily as she clutched her industrial-size purse tighter, “that you need this meeting just as much as I do.”

“If it’ll make you happy, fine,” Luis released an exasperated breath.

“Fine,” Sheridan snapped, striding toward the front of the cafeteria in short, angry steps.

Chad Harris held little Ethan Martin Lopez-Fitzgerald Crane awkwardly in his arms as his girlfriend helped the cooing child’s mother onto an exam table. Chad didn’t have much experience with babies, but the newborn in his arms weighed more like a six-month-old.

Whitney tucked Theresa’s dark hair away from her tear-bloated face, looking up when her mother hurried into the cubicle with a harried expression on her face.

“Whitney, what happened?” Eve asked, shining a tiny light in Theresa’s reddened eyes.

Whitney ducked her head from her mother’s intent gaze shyly, twiddling with her thumbs nervously as she mumbled, “Theresa heard Gwen and Ethan making love. She went hysterical, and she hasn’t said a word since.”

Eve gave Theresa a sympathetic look as she gripped the violently trembling young mother’s hands in her own. “Theresa…it’s Dr. Russell. Do you know where you are?”

Theresa saw Gwen and Ethan holding hands out of the corner of her eyes, and jealousy boiled up within her.

Ethan was hers.

Not that bitch’s.

Gwen would never have him.

Theresa’s raced a mile a minute as she thought of a way to bring Ethan back to her where he belonged.

Willing herself to die and attempting suicide wouldn’t work twice. She already knew that. Simple trial and error.

Ethan Martin wasn’t coming in as handy as she would have liked, and she was really tired of babysitting the kid.

Where was Phyllis when she needed her?

Theresa’s heart soared when her brown eyes landed on the bulletin board behind Dr. Russell’s head, and a plan started to formulate in her head.

Ethan Martin started to cry, and Chad approached the exam table with a grimace on his face. “I think he needs to be changed.”

Theresa schooled her disgusted expression into an appropriately giddy Theresa smile. “Oh, Chad. He’s so cute. Who’s baby is he?”

JACKPOT.

“Theresa,” Eve’s pained expression almost made Theresa giggle. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

Theresa turned adoring brown eyes on Ethan, blatantly ignoring Gwen at his side. “Wasn’t Ethan’s proposal at Midnight Mass the most beautiful proposal, Dr. Russell? I can’t wait to marry the man I love.”

Whitney and Chad exchanged horrified looks while Eve pulled Ethan behind the flimsy curtain separating the emergency cubicles.

“Ethan, you can’t say or do anything to upset Theresa. The consequences could be disastrous.”

Theresa’s brown eyes twinkled wickedly as she stole a glance at Gwen across the cubicle and gave her a devious wink.

Now she just had to figure out a way to keep the Crane name, money, and power so she could have her cake and eat it too.

Brian strutted down the halls of Harmony Hospital in his standard issue hospital gown, oblivious to the stares and shocked gasps that followed him.

They were keeping things from him, and he was going to do a little light detective work to find out some answers.

He paused outside the cafeteria when he heard a familiar voice.

“…Brian…Antonio,” Sheridan corrected herself quickly as she looked out into the crowd gathered in the seats before her, “Antonio took care of me when I was Diana, and yes. I DID fall in love with him. But ONLY because I couldn’t remember my past life. My past life with Luis. Not my past past lives. My life in Harmony with Luis,” Sheridan clarified, clamping a hand over her mouth when she realized no one but Luis knew what she was talking about anyway. “It’s not like I asked to have amnesia.”

“It’s okay, Sheridan,” Grace soothed, coming up behind the younger woman and wrapping her arms around her comfortably. “You didn’t remember Luis. I didn’t remember David when I met and fell in love with Sam. You’re not alone. None of us asked for amnesia.”

Gwen snorted in the back as she watched Ethan reassure Theresa that she’d only forgotten a few minor details.

“Aunt Grace is right, Sheridan,” Charity echoed her aunt’s sentiments sweetly. “You’re not alone. This support group is really wonderful.”

Miguel rest a supporting hand on Charity’s shoulder, and the pair exchanged identical sappy smiles as Luis stood up and slowly made his way toward the front of the cafeteria, eyes dark and intense.

Applause filled the room as the two reunited love birds embraced and shared a kiss of apology.

And in the back of the cafeteria, the inflated ego and physique of Antonio Brian Lopez-Fitzgerald lay prone and unmoving on the floor as members of the disintegrating crowd stepped over it, and one fed-up socialite decided to hell with her intellectually challenged beau and his teenaged groupie and admired the unencumbered view.

It was a reasonably fine-looking ass as asses went, Gwen decided.

Maybe she should get his phone number.

The End

Disclaimer: This story in is in no way meant to infringe upon the rights belonging to , NBC, or any entity thereof. All rights to Passions and any related content, including characters used, belong to "Outpost Farms Production Inc", James E. Reilly, and NBC.
This story is the property of the author. Copyright 2002. Nothing may be reprinted in whole or in part without the written permission of the author.
Amnesiacs Anonymous- Copyright © 2002 - All Rights Reserved.