Note: This story is an interlude to Smitty's story, Coming Home. This is a Patatoverse story. Please be warned.

I used to dream of you.

The softness of your skin. The feeling of your hand curled around my finger. The surge of joy I would get when you looked up at me, knowing me.

When I was a little girl, you would come to me in the mists of the morning. Wreathed in sunlight, you would appear just before I awoke. A small bundle of fuzzy joy and brightness. You hadn't definition then. You were little more than an abstract. A premonition of yet to be.

But even then, you were you.

As I grew, your face became clearer and your stays longer. You visited me earlier in the night, gurgling with a happy coo and the pale gold of afternoon. But you were still bits and pieces then. The way your arms moved resembled that of the Cross baby. The tilt of your head reminded me of little Suzie Arnold. Your eyes though... those were always his.

That was the first thing that struck me about him. All dark hair and Superman pajamas, he was the picture of a young master of the manor. But those eyes... That very night, they became your eyes. So blue and open. Wrapped in the bright colors of the sun.

You both broke my heart.

By the time I graduated from college, I knew you better than I knew myself. I longed for sleep just so I could catch a glimpse of your blue eyes and feel the weight of you against my chest. That warm, strong weight that let me know you were alive. Solid. Pure.

When we became lovers, your father and I, your presence became clearer yet. Your nose was to have been mine. Your fingers his. And you showed me, for the first time that you were a girl. Daddy's little girl, yet to be. Beautiful beyond words, all pigtails and smiles, dashing through a summer twilight.

Always, even after I left him, your eyes stayed blue. And that little tuft of fuzz on your head turned black as a raven's wing. You were the reason I knew things would work out. I knew our time apart would not be in vain because there was always you. You smiling in my dreams.

Your name would have been Mary.

But a clown stole you from me. He took you and my hope away.

Because as that bullet entered me, I felt you die.

Your beautiful eyes and amazing skin would never be. How could I mourn for something that never was? A person that existed no where but in my heart...

But your father did not leave me. He never knew you, so he could not see why I could not accept him into my arms, even if he was already in my heart. I did not know how to share you without causing him grief. But I couldn't not share you. For as you were mine, you were his.

He was too strong for me though. He loved me, and I loved him too much to stay away.

We have a son now.

He has my hair and my father's name. He is strong, my little James. A child I never let myself hope I could raise. I love him so much. He is my son.

But he is not you. He is not my daughter. It was not his face that I have known my entire life. It is not his smile that I ache to glimpse, even in my dreams.

It is yours, Mary. My little lost girl, with eyes the color of a summer sky, and hair the color of night. When he looks at me, he does not know me. Not the way you did.

I miss you Mary.

I love you.

I'm sorry.