Elias once again found himself in hiding, in exactly the same spot that he ensured he was in each and every night. Tonight was evening number 6, and as always time was running slow.. Elias was feeling so weak from his ordeal that he'd been forced into by the FBN... 'If I ever lay eyes on my Izzy again, I'm not sure she'll even recognise me anymore...' Elias started to wipe a tear away from his cheek when he heard various cars arrive at the Lakeview Garden..it was 04:00 in the morning, this was extremely unusual and never seen before in the previous five evenings that Elias had been waiting...

He took a deep breath in before moving back behind the foliage, after all Elias was always living on edge since his escape from the feds, and the torturous six months the FBN had put him through, trying to get him to turn against Godfather Luciano and his wife-to-be Isabella-Luciano.

Elias heard various car doors open and could hear lots of voices, voices that weren't familiar - 'it's the FBN! They've found me, Elias started to go back into hiding, he placed his newly bought black hat from his friend Stephen_Strange back on his head, and just as he turned away he caught a glimpse of Isabella being escorted out of her car...the voices were her bodyguards....'Do I remember those voices?' Elias thought to himself again? 'I've been shut away for so long, I'm not even sure what state my mind is in thesedays..'

Elias was caught up in the suspense, he felt like a lamb about to go to slaughter, he wanted to run so much, but felt that all of his minor strength was preventing him to do so. He wanted to be here so badly, and just the fact he laid eyes on Isabella once again made him feel at peace, she was alive, she was well, she was healthy, and she was as beautiful as the day he left her, when the feds beat him to within an inch of death, and kept him prisoner... 

He could see Isabella getting closer, but remained silent, all that lit the pitch black darkness was his cuban cigar butt...

Isabella paced.  Her men talked among themselves, the ones who still could, Neil kept closest to her.  He eventually reached a hand out and put it on her shoulder.  She looked to him and he gave a mute smile.  She wished she knew what was on his mind, and (for not the first time) she wished she hadn't cut his tongue out.  She patted his hand, as if to say thank you and returned to her pacing.

Vedis' voice rang out.  "Hey!"  He snapped.  "Who goes there?!?"  He had his gun pointed towards an out of the way place in the furthest corner of the gardens.  Her men backed up to her, shielding her with their bodies, pulling weapons.  

"Come out and show yourself!"  The guard demanded, his gun trained on the small spot of light in the darkness.  "My boss Isabella Luciano wants a word with you."

Elias' heart started to pound, you would think by now he would of been used to a gun pointing at him...it was second nature in this dark corrupt world. There wasn't a night that went by when Elias didn't have a guarded FBN agent with him at all times, and their gun was always cocked and pointing in his direction...

Elias was meters away from Isabella-Luciano and her guard now, he took a final puff on the cuban cigar before parting the think foliage he was standing behind....he stepped outside for the first time, laid eyes on Isabella...they were face to face at last....Elias had waited for this moment ever since he'd been taken by the feds as they tried with all their might to 'turn him'

Elias paused, before opening his mouth and uttering one word.....'Izzy'

The gaunt man who came out saying her name looked NOTHING like Elias save the most vaguest sense of the word.  His voice even was strained and full of doubt, pain, and things she couldn't find words for if she had all the time in the world and a library of books to search through.  Her every instinct was to run to him which was why her head spun!

He was hurt... if it was, in fact, him.  And yet... how could it be?  A war waged in her head as her men held their ground, guns at the ready.  Neil stepped up beside her as she realized her breath had quickened and her vision was swimming.

"How... it's not..."  She whispered.  "I... I buried..."  She gasped and a few of her bodyguards turned away from Elias to attend her as her hyperventilation worsened.

And the night seemed to grow darker all the sudden and a sense of falling took over her whole body as she collapsed into Neil's arms hearing her bodyguards screaming orders for her to be put into the car and for the man who looked like her dead lover to keep his hands where they could see them.

Elias held his hands in the air as Isabella-Luciano fainted and had to be held up by Neil, who seemed to now be her most trusted protector...'what happened to Nails, and why isn't he talking to me?' Elias thought...'he's the one face apart from Isabella's that I know'

Elias was escorted gingerly to one of the vehicles by Isabella's men, he sighed to himself and wished that one day his strength return and he would be able to walk alongside Isabella once more, he could barely carry the weight of his own arms, let alone another person...he ducked his head as Neil put him in the back of one of the vehicles, where he sat in the middle of his Don and her newly found 'friend'

As the car started and the brakes released on the vehicle, the shutter of the disc releasing the wheel, woke Isabella up...who clearly thought she had imagined everything, and was merely in one of her frequent nightmares... Elias unable to hold her hand like he longed for, couldn't help but notice that the ring he gave her, for what seemed like an eternity, shining as brightly as ever...

As Isabella still struggled to come to terms with what she was seeing, and clearly couldn't recognise how underweight and wasted away Elias was...he reached down to his shirt, unbuttoned three times and exposed an old wound...a wound that he got in the great war, it was surgically repaired by none other than Godfather Luciano's personnel physician, the same physician who also saved Isabella from a near fatal blow...'if she doesn't recognise my face, maybe the scar will ring true to her'

'It really is me darling'

"This is a dream."  She said softly.  "A nightmare..."  She blinked.  Neil took her hand and patted it.  She looked to him.  His sympathetic smile and shake of his head stated she wasn't asleep.

She shuddered and exhaled forcing herself to sit up and turn towards Elias and look him over.  He was a wreck, an absolute shambles, worse than when he'd come back from the war.  He looked like he'd crawled up out of his grave just as he did so many times in her dreams.

She reached a trembling hand out and touched his scar just as she had so many times before - just as she'd touched Gavin's.  She pulled her hand back as if she'd touch a hot iron at the flash of Gavin in her mind.  "What have I done..."  She muttered.

She looked up to Elias' eyes, "It is you."  She said reaching her hand towards him again, this time to touch his cheek.  She let it linger there, trying to give him some comfort while also trying to come to grips with the truth.  "You need a doctor."  she finally said.  "I'm taking you to a doctor."