Chapter 76 New Beginnings
Six Months After Hope's Birth
Evelyn's POV - Cole Residence, Upper East Side - 8:47 AM
The sound of Hope crying through the baby monitor pulled me from the edge of sleep.
I reached across the bed automatically, but Adrian was already gone his side of the bed cold, meaning he'd been up for hours.
Since becoming a father, Adrian had developed an inability to sleep past 6 AM. He'd spend the early morning hours working from home, checking on the Project Tabula Rasa recovery cases, responding to emails from the legal team prosecuting Stirling-Hale.
And apparently, this morning, taking care of our daughter before I woke up.
I found them in the nursery a room we'd designed together, painted a soft sage green with constellations mapped across the ceiling. Adrian sat in the rocking chair, Hope cradled against his chest, a bottle in his hand.
"Good morning," I said softly.
Adrian looked up, and despite the exhaustion in his eyes, he smiled. "Morning. I tried to let you sleep longer, but someone decided 7 AM was breakfast time."
"She's consistent," I said, moving to kiss the top of Hope's head. At six months old, she had a full head of dark curls and eyes that had settled into a striking grey exactly like Adrian's. "I'll take her so you can get ready for work."
"Actually," Adrian said, "I'm working from home today. I cleared my schedule."
"Why?"
"Because it's Thursday," Adrian said simply.
Thursday. The day I had my standing appointment with Dr. Morrison to work on memory recovery. The day Adrian always made sure he was home, just in case the sessions brought up something difficult.
"You don't have to do that every week," I said. "I'm fine—"
"I know you're fine," Adrian interrupted gently. "But I want to be here anyway. That's what partners do."
Partners. Not husband and wife we hadn't taken that step yet. Adrian's divorce from Isabelle had been finalized two months ago, amicable and quiet. But neither of us had rushed into anything new. We were taking it slow, rebuilding trust, learning who we really were together.
"Thank you," I said, taking Hope and settling into the other chair. She immediately started rooting, wanting to nurse instead of finish her bottle.
"I'll make breakfast," Adrian said, standing. "Eggs? Toast?"
"And coffee," I added. "Lots of coffee."
After he left, I sat in the quiet of the nursery, nursing our daughter and watching the morning sun paint patterns on the wall.
Life had settled into something resembling normal over the past months.
Adrian had returned to Cole Enterprises full-time, though with significant changes. He'd brought in independent auditors, restructured the board, and implemented new oversight measures to prevent the kind of infiltration Stirling-Hale had accomplished.
I'd been working as a consultant with the FBI, helping Director Valdez and her team understand the mechanics of Project Tabula Rasa so they could develop reversal protocols for the other victims.
And together, we were learning how to be parents to a baby who had no idea how complicated her origin story was.
"Your daddy loves you very much," I whispered to Hope. "And so do I. And your grandmother Eleanor, and your grandfather James, and Vanessa your very unusual aunt-figure and so many other people who fought to make sure you'd be born into a safer world."
Hope's only response was to grip my finger with surprising strength.
My phone buzzed. A message from Dr. Morrison:
Dr. Morrison: Running 15 minutes late. Emergency with one of the other recovery cases. Still want to meet at 10?
Me: Of course. Everything okay?
Dr. Morrison: Subject 23 had a breakthrough. Remembered something significant. I'll explain when I get there.
Subject 23. That's how we referred to the Project Tabula Rasa victims in official documentation numbered identities to protect their privacy while they recovered.
I knew who Subject 23 was, though. A journalist named Michael Chen who'd been conditioned to write favorable articles about Stirling-Hale's subsidiaries. He'd been in recovery for five months, and progress had been slow.
A breakthrough was good news.
10:17 AM - Study
Dr. Morrison arrived looking tired but energized in the way she got when a case was progressing.
"Sorry I'm late," she said, accepting the coffee Adrian handed her. "Michael Chen remembered the name of his handler. The person who gave him assignments, told him what to write. It's someone we didn't have in our files—someone who might lead us to other victims we haven't identified yet."
"That's significant," Adrian said.
"Very," Dr. Morrison agreed. She set up her laptop on the desk. "But that's not why I asked to move today's session earlier. Evelyn, we need to talk about your memory recovery."
My stomach tightened. "What about it?"
"You've been in treatment for six months," Dr. Morrison said carefully. "And while you've recovered significant portions of your identity your history as Evelyn Martinez, your DARPA work, your FBI operation there are still gaps. Significant gaps. Particularly around the period immediately after your dishonorable discharge."
"I thought we established that discharge was fake," I said. "Part of the cover story."
"It was," Dr. Morrison confirmed. "But there's approximately eighteen months between your 'discharge' from the Army and your recruitment by DARPA that remain completely blank. No memories, no records, nothing. And Evelyn that concerns me."
"Why?" Adrian asked, moving to stand behind my chair protectively.
"Because blank periods in memory recovery usually indicate one of two things," Dr. Morrison said. "Either the memories are so traumatic that your mind is protecting you from them, or they were suppressed so deeply that standard recovery techniques can't reach them."
"What are you suggesting?" I asked.
"I'm suggesting that there might be another layer," Dr. Morrison said. "Something that happened to you during those missing eighteen months that someone wanted erased. Possibly something that predates your work on Project Tabula Rasa entirely."
The room felt suddenly cold.
"You think I was conditioned before?" I said slowly. "Before I ever created the memory suppression technology? That I might have been a victim first?"
"I think it's possible," Dr. Morrison said. "And if it's true, it would explain some anomalies we've noticed in your neural scans. Patterns that suggest multiple conditioning events, not just the self-administered suppression you underwent three years ago."
Adrian's hand found my shoulder, steadying. "What would we need to do to find out?"
"Deep hypnotherapy," Dr. Morrison said. "More intensive than what we've been doing. We'd put you in a controlled trance state and try to access those buried memories directly. But Evelyn—" She looked at me seriously. "I need you to understand the risks. If there are traumatic memories buried there, bringing them to the surface could be psychologically destabilizing. We'd need to do it in a controlled environment with psychiatric support standing by."
"And if we don't do it?" I asked. "If we just leave those eighteen months buried?"
"Then you'll never have a complete picture of who you are," Dr. Morrison said bluntly. "You'll spend the rest of your life wondering what happened during that time. Whether it's relevant to Project Tabula Rasa. Whether there are more victims or conspirators we haven't identified. Whether" She paused. "whether you're truly safe, or if there's someone else out there who knows about those missing months and could use them against you."
I looked at Adrian. "What do you think?"
"I think," Adrian said carefully, "that the decision is yours. I'll support whatever you choose. But Evelyn if there's any chance that recovering those memories could put you or Hope at risk, I need to know that. I need to be able to protect you."
"The deep hypnotherapy would be completely voluntary," Dr. Morrison said. "You could stop at any point. And we'd have safeguards in place—Dr. Ashford monitoring your vitals, psychiatric support, emergency protocols. You wouldn't be alone in this."
I thought about Hope, sleeping peacefully in her nursery. About the life we'd built over the past six months. About the fragile stability we'd achieved.
Did I really want to risk that by digging into a past I might not want to remember?
But then I thought about the other victims. About Michael Chen, finally remembering his handler's name. About forty-six other people still struggling to reclaim their identities.
If those missing eighteen months contained information that could help them could I justify keeping that buried just to protect my own peace?
"I'll do it," I said. "But not here. And not now. I need time to prepare. To make sure Hope is taken care of. To" I took a breath. "—to make sure I'm ready for whatever we find."
"That's reasonable," Dr. Morrison said. "We can schedule it for next month. Give you time to arrange childcare, prepare mentally, set up the proper support systems."
"And in the meantime?" Adrian asked.
"In the meantime, I continue working with the other victims," Dr. Morrison said. "And I start researching what might have happened during those missing months. See if I can find any records, any clues, anything that might help us understand what we're dealing with before we attempt recovery."
After Dr. Morrison left, Adrian and I sat in silence for a long moment.
"Are you scared?" he asked finally.
"Terrified," I admitted. "What if those missing months reveal something terrible? What if I did something hurt someone before I ever created Project Tabula Rasa? What if—" My voice dropped. "—what if I'm not who I think I am at all?"
"Then we deal with it," Adrian said firmly. "Together. Evelyn, I don't care what we find in those missing months. Whatever happened, whoever you were it doesn't change who you are now. It doesn't change that you're Hope's mother, my partner, the person who sacrificed everything to stop a conspiracy. That's real. That's what matters."
"You can't promise that," I said. "You don't know what we'll find."
"No," Adrian agreed. "But I know you. And I trust you. So whatever's buried in those eighteen months we'll face it. Like we've faced everything else."
I leaned into him, drawing comfort from his presence. "When did you become so wise?"
"When I woke up from a coma and realized I couldn't trust my own memories," Adrian said dryly. "Nothing makes you philosophical quite like questioning reality itself."
Despite my anxiety, I smiled.