For almost a year without any call, no email or a text to check on her daughter . Adriana decided to come back to Bogota from her trip to Ecuador , she called a girlfriend of hers who was still working and living at St Mary's Orphanage , her friend was excited to hear from her again , asked her where she was , told her she was staying in a hotel but planning to go back to Ecuador , her friend asked whether she had talked to Manuel . Adriana wanted it to be a surprise ,begged her friend not to let Manuel know about her presence in Bogota .

It took her a day to decide to drop by at Manuel's apartment , she went and knocked on his door , luckily enough Manuel was home , came and opened the door , on seeing her standing in a door way in her shirtwaist dark blue dress with black high heels , her eyes crinkling , the corners of her mouths upturned , though she looked so elegant and totally changed , her presence reminded him the day he gave her his email to contact him whenever she wanted to check on her daughter but since then , he never heard anything from her .

"What do you want?" Were the only words that could come out of his mouth at a moment .

"Am not here to see you ." She replied . " I know you're still angry with me for having not made a single call or emailed you to ask you about our daughter but right now am here to see her."

"You're crazy , after ten months , you're now coming back to check on your daughter , what kind of a mother are you?"

"Manuel . I've been through a rough time . I couldn't get time to come and see my daughter , remember the guy who took me to work in Ecuador , it was all a lie , these guys were traffickers , they were gathering girls for prostitution but what they didn't know is that I lived with former guerrillas at St Mary's and I knew how to defend myself . I managed to escape from the place where they were keeping us , wandered throughout the streets of Quito for days till I met a guy , a wonderful guy , who sheltered me , we fell in love and right now am with him , by the way he's a baker like you."

"Good for you , so are you here to take the child and start living with him?" He asked . " You know I love Isabella . I can not let you take her away from me."

"Am not here to take her , the truth is, I never wanted to be a mother in first place , but I had to give birth to her and because she's my child , hope you understand that it's my right to check on her and see how she's doing ."

"It doesn't make any sense to me Adriana."

"Manuel , to you I may sound like a bad mother but please don't judge me . I love my daughter . I love her like anyone loves her sister , a neighbour or a friend ."

"I can see ,it's not a motherly love ,anyway am not going to stop you from seeing your daughter but you're not going to take her anywhere ."

Manuel allowed her inside the house , went and saw her daughter in her crib , she was asleep , lifted her out , held her in her arms , she asked Manuel for a photo of her , she could frame it and have a look at her whenever she felt like . Manuel looked through the drawers and got her picture of Isabella . Adriana took the photo and had the girl back in her crib to sleep , then headed to the doorway , asked Manuel to allow her see the girl whenever she felt like . Manuel agreed to her suggestion .

"Let me hope that it's going on well between you and Fiona now !"

"Just call me whenever you want to see you daughter , what's going on between me and Fiona it's none of your business ."

Manuel avoided the topic because what was going on between him and Fiona wasn't clear to him. Fiona had gone back to living with her family , though Manuel was there for her during the time when she was ill . Fiona continued taking her medical studies before anything else.

And at the university, the three students met again that morning before going for their classes . Victor had something bothering him , what he saw at Huria's house was stuck in his head , felt like Huria was slipping away from him to Christian , asked the two girls to give him some advise on how to win Huria back . Fiona had no idea by then but Natalia had one .

"When you see Huria around , pulled her out among the crowd here at the university campus , get on your knees and ask for forgiveness , pull out all your charms , if she refuses to forgive you , speak to the boss ."

"The Boss ?" Fiona wondered who the boss was .

"You mean doctor Alfonso ?" Victor asked .

"That's right , am talking about doctor Alfonso silly , go and talk to him if it's hard for you to get his daughter back and also warn him about the guy his daughter is hanging out with."

"I don't know whether it's a good idea Victor but for me what am thinking about right now is a serenade , serenade her."

"A serenade , Huria now lives in an apartment on a flat , the neighbors might not like the idea of the noise coming from all this ." Natalia dumped the idea .

"I think it can work ." Victor thought about it , he looked excited . "I will bring all sorts of musicians and we can do it at your house Fiona , it's free there , you have a street which is almost yours and a rooftop ,that's a perfect location for a serenade . Natalia , you're also going to help me organize it."

"I don't see any problem with doing that at our house." Fiona agreed to help out . " But we have one big problem , how do we get Huria to drop by at my house? What perfect excuse can we come up with?"

"A celebration , let's make a celebration about your recovery , who would resist that?"

"But first try out with my idea Victor , go talk to the boss , maybe later you can try Fiona's serenades."

After classes . Victor went to Alfonso's office , asked Dulcey if doctor Alfonso was in . Dulcey told him he was in and allowed him to enter . Alfonso wondered what brought Victor to his office when he saw him, he never dropped by before since he started studying at San Pedro's .

"What can I do for you Victor ?" He asked .

"A good evening doctor , am here to talk about your daughter ."

"What happened to Huria?"

"Nothing happened to Huria , it's just that she's going out with some silly guy called Christian , we met Christian at the landslide scene . Christian is a womanizer , he hits on one girl after another , so I'm wondering whether you would like you daughter to have a person like him around her ."

"I thought Christian and Huria are just friends , at least that's what she told me."

"No . Christian's intentions are different , well that would be okay if he's just a friend to your daughter but the guy is careless right from his job , can you believe it he neglected my friend Devon and that's why he got worse to the extent of being paralyzed , now what will happen if he started dating your daughter , he will still be careless with her."

"What exactly do you want from me Victor ?" Alfonso realized he was jealous .

"I want you to help me get back your daughter ,she has to forgive me . I'm in a dilemma of losing her."

Alfonso promised him to look into it not because he had a right to meddle in his daughter love life but because Victor was a nice boy , he had already proven that to him, taking him back home whenever he got drunk on several occasions and also helping his daughter with many things like on how to pay electricity bills .

Hurianah didn't know all about this going on behind her back , the surprises everyone was preparing for her ,didn't know about Victor talking to her father , she was having a good time with Christian in the laboratory . Christian was dedicating himself to teaching her on how to cement a patient's burns .

"You should always remove any contaminated clothing , be careful not to touch exposed areas , promptly rinse the clothing in clean water , gently brush any dry chemicals off the skin and flash the affected area with clean running water for at least twenty minutes ." He explained as he kept on staring at her .

"Wow . I didn't know you're comfortable in this field too." Huria blushed .

Fiona had to wait for Victor at the university's gate , the two had been going back home in Victor's truck together lately , still waiting for him to come out of the building . John the journalist showed up at the campus , he was surprised to see Fiona again , called out her name . Fiona was shocked to see the journalist at the university.

"How did you find this place?" She asked .

"Months ago Manuel called m, told me you wanted to talk to me , he sounded sure that you were ready to share your story to the public but I never got to hear from him again after that , so i've been doing my research on how to get to this place ,hope you're not mad at me that it looks like am stalking you."

"No , not at all , though am sorry to tell you that you've wasted your energy by coming here , it has taken you so long , back then the situation was worse . I thought I was going to die so I was willing to tell everything because I knew I wasn't going to be judged in my absence."

"You mean you were going to die , that makes news too, tell me about how you came close to death?"

"I think you don't get it." She laughed . "I'm no longer interested in sharing my story to anyone."

"Listen to me Tabna , your past will always be a part of you , it won't be easy for you to erase it , maybe only if you talk about it , tell me how often do you hear of stories like yours , just let us do this ,besides you can become famous for this , you can earn a lot of money from your story , you can be an ambassador in big organizations like the UN representing many children out there who were former child soldiers , you can fight for their rights as you've been fighting for your rights all this time."

"I will think about it ." She seemed pretty convinced .

The Journalist left her with another card of his number to contact him if she's ready . Fiona grabbed the card , stayed out there waiting for Victor , eventually Victor . Natalia and Huria came out of the building with the rest of others students . Huria came before the two , met Fiona first , though she was in a hurry managed to say hello to her and before she could continue on her way out . Fiona stopped her , asked her if she could drop by at her house tomorrow because there was a celebration of her recovery. Huria assured her that she couldn't miss an important day for her and before she could continue on her way out again, she ceased and asked Fiona if she could bring anyone along .

"Of course Huria , you can bring along anyone you want , let it Victor .Natalia , your father , your uncles and aunties , friends , old friends and everyone you can think of."

She thanked her for the invitation . Victor and Natalia were close by as she accepted the invitation . Victor was filled with joy , screamed 'yes' in excitement . Fiona and Huria looked at him as he lifted Natalia and jumped around with her in his arms . Huria wondered what was making him so excited , didn't pay much attention to it and continued on her way out .

When he calmed down , came and scolded Fiona for asking Huria to bring whoever she wanted , he wasn't going to apologize to her before everyone.

"Instead of scolding me , you should be more thankful , it's my effort that she is going to be there , now you better take me home."

"Okay thank you , the good thing is , she will show up."

The two girls got into the truck . Victor sat on the wheel to take them back to their houses , he first dropped Natalia at her house because it was nearby the university compared to Fiona's , when Natalia was off , they continued to Fiona's house and on their way . Fiona was thinking a lot . Victor noticed that and asked her what she was thinking about .

"It's the journalist whom I talked to before you guys came out of the building , he wanted me to publicize the story of my life . I don't think am ready , what do you think Victor about this?"

"If there is no more Baragan after you , no more Ignasia , no more Segura , why not? Give it a shot."

Fiona promised to call John the journalist after thoroughly thinking about it , when about to reach her house , through the truck's window , she saw her sister Monica arriving at Chucho's house , wondered what she was doing at the house at a time she was supposed to be home , asked Victor to drop her off at Chucho's house . Victor asked her whether it was okay to leave her half way home , told him she had something to do before getting home, when she was out of the truck .Victor left . Fiona walked towards Chucho's house , before she could knock on the door , went around the house looking through the windows to see what was happening inside the house , shockingly , she saw her sister making out with Ramon which meant no one was at home except the two , banged the window , asked the two to open up immediately , looking at the window , they saw Fiona , they stopped what they were doing , Ramon buttoned up , came and opened the door , pleaded to Fiona not to tell anyone about what she'd just seen .

"Can I talk to my sister?" She ordered as Monica came out from inside to the door . Ramon went back inside the house to leave them alone .

"Fiona." Her sister closed door from outside . " I get enough of my mother's scolding about what's good for me and what's not but I can not stand another scolding from my elder sister , that would be too much for me ." She rolled her eyes . " Tell me sister , are you going to tell mom about what you've just seen for your satisfaction?"

" No , am not going to mother about this . I just want to give you a piece of advise , stop being a brat . I know it's your life , you have a right to do whatever you want in your life , sometimes I ask myself whether I should admire you or not but coming to think about it and what I've been through , that roughness that was all over my body , that made me hate sleeping with men , there is nothing to admire from you , just do the right thing , it's all I want from you , if Ramon is truly in love with you , he should never pressure you as it appears now ."

Monica listened to her sister , understood her and her past , it was a girl to girl talk , she promised to her to be more careful with Ramon and Fiona also promised what she had just seen was to stay between the two of them .