Sheridan watched Antonio as he entered the room, a bright smile on his face. His health had improved steadily under the care of both herself and Eve Russell and she had been cleared to give him the news. Finally, two weeks after learning that she was carrying Luis’ baby, Sheridan would be able to tell Antonio that she was in love with his brother, the man she was going to marry. He settled on the couch, grabbing the paper on his way down and Sheridan placed her flatten palm against the slight bulge in her blouse. Summoning all the courage she had, Sheridan decided now was the time she would do it.

“Antonio, there’s something we need to talk about,” Sheridan murmured, crossing the room to sit beside him. She watched as he slowly lowered the newspaper and looked curiously at her. Breaking his heart was not going to be an easy thing for her, but Luis and her children deserved to be together and she had a right to marry the father of her baby.

“What is it, Sheridan? Are you nervous about our upcoming wedding?” he asked, folding the paper back up and placing it on the table in front of him. “I’m sure everything is going to be wonderful, my love. It will be the greatest wedding Harmony has ever seen.”

Sheridan flinched at his term of endearment, feeling sorry that she was about to break his heart. Her pain, however, was short lived as she considered the life of the baby inside her. “Actually, Antonio, it’s more than the wedding that’s bothering me. It’s about a lie I have been living since we returned from Bermuda, one I’m ready to give up.”

“I don’t know if I follow, Sheridan,” Antonio looked confused, though Sheridan had to admit he often did look befuddled. “What lie could you be living?”

Taking a deep breath, Sheridan had to look at the floor to continue. She didn’t want to witness the moment his heart split in two. “Antonio, the reason Harmony and everyone in it seems so familiar, as you know, is because I’ve lived here. And when I was living here I was the fiancée to someone in this town, someone you know very well: a man you love and trust, in fact.”

“Sheridan, I thought you said your fiancé lived in Paris and passed away?” he asked, completely concerned about the turn the conversation was taking.

“One fiancé did, but he wasn’t the love of my life, Antonio. The man I love, my true soul mate, is very much alive and still living in Harmony. You know him, Antonio, because he…” she hesitated, tears filling her eyes. “He’s your brother, Antonio. I’m in love with Luis and we’re still engaged to be married and I had to tell you the truth because I’m carrying his baby. I got pregnant during your illness and I know it’s his.”

Antonio sat on the couch, shock clearly written in his expression. He didn’t know how to react: angry, devastated or hurt. Sheridan had dealt him a crushing blow and yet he knew that the pain she was feeling never would match his. For months she had been lying to him and he was sure he knew why: his health. Even Luis, a man that hated lying, would never have wished his death. “I want to say we’ll still marry, but,” he looked at her, the tears rolling down her beautiful cheeks and turning her eyes red, “I can’t do that to you. I know you must love Luis a lot, Sheridan, or else you wouldn’t even have said a word and I know he must adore you to be willing to let you save me. But I’m healthy now and there’s no reason for you to be trapped into a marriage that would only be one sided.”

“Does this mean…”

“Go to him. Tell him about his child. I’ll be ok.”

She hugged him tightly, kissing his cheek gently. “You have no idea what this means to me, Antonio! I never wanted to hurt you.”

“I know and I’m honored you loved me enough to stay with me in my time of need. But now I can love you enough to say goodbye.”

Sheridan was about to get up and leave the house, when the phone rang. Antonio looked at her and she, in turn, looked at the telephone. Reaching for it slowly, as if she knew something was wrong, Sheridan lifted the receiver to her ear. “Sheridan Crane.”

“Sheridan, this is Sam Bennett. I’ve been trying to get in touch with Pilar but I can’t seem to find her anywhere. Do you know where I can find her?”

“No, Sam,” Sheridan recognized the take-charge tone in his voice. “Sam, is everything all right with Miguel? Is that why you’re calling?”

Sam sighed. “No, Sheridan, it’s not Miguel. It’s Luis…there’s been a shooting…”

That was all Sheridan heard before the phone fell from her hand, crashing to the floor and breaking. Antonio rushed to her side just as she started to collapse, her knees too weak to hold her after the jolt from the news. She barely heard him ask what happened and didn’t remember responding at all as the room began to spin. All she knew is Antonio was helping her to the car and the world around her seemed darker than ever before.

Sheridan slowly made her way down the dimmed hallway that Eve had finally allowed her to pass through. After several hours of surgery, Luis was in a coma and clinging with all his might to the precious string of life. At any moment he could slip one way or the other and while his life dangled precariously in the balance of things, she knew she had to tell him. Everyone told her that her voice could be the one thing to bring Luis back and as she paused outside his ICU room she wasn’t sure it was true. He laid so gray and motionless on the crisp, white hospital sheets, tubes and monitors performing the necessary functions of life. Her hand shook as she pushed open the door to his room, the tremors echoing throughout her entire body. There was a chair strategically placed at his left side, which happened to be the side the bullet had pierced through. Taking a deep, unsteady breath, Sheridan fell into the chair beside his bed and the tears began to fall anew.

“Why? Why is it every time I have a chance at loving you that something happens? First the imposter, then my near death from being buried alive and then the boat accident and Antonio? Why Luis? Why are we doomed never to marry?”

The echo of the heart monitor filled the room, the hissing of his respirator filling her with hope. She caressed his hand and lifted up slightly to kiss his lips; they were cool and she shuddered at the lack of heat.

“I’m pregnant,” she told him. “I found out two weeks ago that the baby is yours. Amazing what a little test can do now a days. I’m about three months along, believe it or not, and Eve thinks this one might be a girl. I’m hoping for a boy,” she brushed some hair off his forehead. “I told Antonio the truth, Luis, so if you come back to me now we can be married and raise our child together. Do you hear me? Our baby needs you, damn it, and if you don’t want to come back for me you have to come back for him.”

There was no reply.

She shook her head. “This isn’t fair and it isn’t right. I love you, Luis, and I finally realized how stupid it was for me to think that marrying Antonio was the right thing to do, but Luis, I thought I was doing what was best for our love. I guess I didn’t realize what trouble it would cause. Sam told me why you lost your concentration, Luis. He told me you were looking at the picture in your wallet…the one of me.” Tears continued to roll down her cheeks. “And when you wake up, Lopez-Fitzgerald, I’m going to chew you out for being so careless and trying to scare me this way.”

She moved away from the bed and towards the small window in the room. Looking out across Harmony, she felt a sudden chill as if her body was losing some heat inside of her. Closing her eyes, she could almost see her dreams of a life with Luis fading away and suddenly an alarm went off. She turned around to find a bright, blinking red line flashing on Luis’ monitor and screamed. The color drained from her face and suddenly Sheridan felt very light headed. Before she knew what was happening, the world went black…

Sheridan handed two single, long stemmed, thorn-less roses to her children, letting them hold the red blossoms out into the cold winter air. She held out her hands for them to take, their small, gloved palms sliding into her own. As they turned the corner, she noticed the silhouette of a man that caused her breath to catch in her throat. That form, the proud stance, the short cut velvet black hair that she loved to run her fingers through, belonged to Luis. Her Luis, the man that owned her heart and soul.

The sunlight blurred her vision, especially when it caught her tears, but Sheridan’s heart soared at the thought it could be him. She started to walk more quickly towards the corner, deterred only by the slower feet of her children and the voice in her head that reprimanded her for believing in such foolish dreams. She knew it couldn’t be him; Luis was gone and never coming back, but still he had such hope that she was wrong.

The light at the end of the street changed and he crossed, meeting another woman halfway. He kissed her hello and Sheridan saw his face. It wasn’t her Luis at all and she felt the same crushing pain she felt every night when she went to sleep in an empty bed or when her children cried for the father they had never known.

Turning down another street, she returned to her car and buckled in her treasured children so they could continue on to their real destination for the day. As she climbed behind the wheel, Sheridan remembered many other times she sworn she had seen Luis: the day she gave birth to their children, countless Christmases and birthdays and while out shopping for groceries. It seemed like everyday she was seeing his face or hearing his voice and it frightened her, but not as much as it wounded her. She couldn’t stand the pain anymore and wished it would go away, but she never wanted to lose her connection to him…

Never.

Sheridan walked up the side of the hill holding the hands of her two children. Luis Junior and Hope were born six months to the day after the death of their father. Now, at age four and a half, Sheridan brought them along to the cemetery on the anniversary of his death. Tears filled her eyes as a very intelligent LJ stopped before the headstone that belong to his father, tracing the letters that he knew as part of his name and then the police badge beside it.

“Daddy,” he spoke sadly, brown eyes filling with tears. His father’s eyes. LJ’s face was one of the first places she saw her Luis everyday. He was the spitting image of his father, the same eyes and hair, the same expressions. It was almost as if they were one and the same, not just father and son. On the other hand Hope was just like Sheridan: blue eyes, brown hair and the same fair complexion. But still, the look on her face sometimes reminded Sheridan of Luis and it killed her inside to know that they would never know their father.

“Go on, sweetheart,” Sheridan coaxed LJ.

LJ dropped the rose onto the ground before the headstone and knelt in the snow. “I love you, Daddy,” he sniffled. “Mommy misses you.”

“Me too!” Hope argued, dropping her rose besides her brother. “Love you.”

Sheridan fought the tears that threatened to spill. She heard footsteps nearing and turned to find Antonio behind her. Brushing tears off her cheeks she chewed on her bottom lip nervously. “Do you mind if I have a few more minutes?” she asked them. “I…I haven’t gotten to…”

“We understand,” Antonio offered a gentle smile. “Why don’t I take the twins back to the car and keep them warm for a while?”

“I’d appreciate that,” Sheridan told him. “Hope, LJ, go with Uncle Antonio to the car, all right darlings? Mommy will be along soon.”

“Otay,” the twins chimed, running to their uncle and grabbing his hands. As they started to walk away, Hope broke free and ran back to her mother, giving her a giant hug.

“He’s still here, Mommy. Daddy’s an angel, Nana says so,” she kissed her mother’s jacket and then scurried after her brother and uncle.

No longer able to hide her sadness, Sheridan allowed herself to finally cry. Falling to her knees in the snow, she touched the headstone that marked Luis’ final resting place. “Do you know what this is like for me?” she demanded. “Every day I look at them, I look into LJ’s eyes and I see the man I was supposed to marry. You’re so far away, Luis, and yet every corner I turn, every giggle from your children proves that you’re still on the same planet. I can’t handle the pain of losing you and then LJ will just smile at me and I’ll laugh and cry all at the same time.”

She took a deep breath, wiping away more of the tears that fell from her eyes. “I miss you so much,” she told him. “The world is cold and dark without you. I haven’t been able to get married, despite Antonio’s attempts. I don’t want to love another man. The twins have learned so much about you and they get so big every day, Luis.” She paused. “I wish they could really know you. I wish you were really here. So do they. They love their Daddy.”

“I dreamed about you again last night, Luis. The same dream as always. You walk into the house and sweep me into those strong arms of yours, kissing me silent. When we pull away, we just look at each other and I’m filled with such joy that it’s indescribable. And then the twins run into the room and hug us and we play with them on the floor. We spend the whole day together and at night we make love. I can even feel your breath on my face and the words you whisper so sweetly. But then the alarm rings in the morning, Luis, and I wake up to find that it’s not real. The bed is empty and cold on your side and the twins have dried tear tracks on their cheeks because they want you in their lives. It’s the same cold, miserable, gray day, no matter what the weather is really like. But it always seems so real and even if I can’t touch you, I feel that same love I’ve had for you since the day we’ve met.”

Placing a kiss against her ice-cold fingers, Sheridan then rested them against his headstone. “This isn’t real, Luis,” she told him. “This stone, the snow, the grass: none of it is real. What is genuine is the love I have for you and our children and those two darling babies that have lost out on a wonderful man. What’s real is the fact that one day we’ll be together again. That’s a promise.”

Rising, Sheridan dusted the powdery flakes off her knees. “I love you,” she walked away.

She had tried living in Paris, but even there memories of him haunted her. She had tried living in Spain, but she found that his face appeared more often there than anywhere because it was the place they always wanted to see together. She had tried New York, London, Los Angeles and Boston, but none of those places would take away the pain or the loss she felt from missing Luis. He followed her to every city and finally she brought her babies home. It had taken her the first year of her children’s lives to realize that there was no escaping his memory, because he was still there: in her children and in her heart.

She thanked Antonio for sitting with the children and as she started to climb into the car, she heard a man laugh. Freezing, she looked around for Luis because the laugh she heard belonged to him as well. The man laughed again and she found herself looking at a man that was nothing like her lost true love. But she needed to hear the laugh, needed to see his face because she wasn’t sure if she could have lived another day without hearing the music in Luis’ voice: even if it wasn’t Luis.

Sliding into the car, she buckled her belt and looked over her shoulder at the twins. Both of them smiled at her and blew her kisses. She couldn’t help but smile back. They were all she had left in her life, the only things worth living for. Without Luis the world was bleak, but with her children she could see the sun again.

“I love you,” Sheridan told her twins.

“Love you, Mommy,” they replied simultaneously, giggling a little afterwards. They could feel her pain and even if they didn’t understand it, they were still hurt because she was.

Starting the car, Sheridan drove off past the man that she had seen on the street and she thought of the man she loved one last time. He was gone for five long years, five long painful years. She regretted every wasted moment, every missed opportunity. Part of her felt that if she had only told Antonio sooner, she could have spared Luis’ life and her children would have the father they deserved.

As she stopped at the red light, she quickly glanced at the seat beside her and she could almost see his outline there. He was smiling proudly, as if he knew of her accomplishments and those of their children. Her heart cried out for him to stay, but he didn’t. Slowly, he seemed to disappear as he turned away from her and Sheridan looked away.

He was gone…

Yet, he was still there…

Always.

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.
You're Still Here- Copyright © 2002 - All Rights Reserved.