The dark forces were getting even more desperate to stop the "chosen ones" from foiling their attempts to destroy the universe. They had set their own dark master plan in motion and it was progressing without them constantly having to manipulate the free will of some uncooperative humans. They had discovered enough dark human souls to carry on the plan for them... they only had to pop in every once in a while to make an evil suggestion if the humans were unsure what to do...
So the dark forces turned the majority of their attention toward the one group of "chosen ones" who represented the biggest threat to their plan. But the only time the "chosen ones" were ever vulnerable to their influence was when they were close to death. And it took a lot of their power whenever they tried to cause harm to any of the "chosen ones" because they had to combat The Guardians in order to do so...
But The Guardians were spending the majority of their time watching over the last two generations of those "chosen ones" and were seemingly unconcerned with the first one. The dark forces saw a way to interfere that they hoped would send ripple effects down through the generations...
**********
The year 1981 started off very badly for Lily Wilson...
As part of their medical internship at UCLA, she and Charlie Richards had been assigned a rotation in the Emergency Room on New Year's Eve. Just after midnight, they were contacted by a Rescue Squad and advised that they were coming in with victims from an auto accident. An older middle-aged couple had been struck; the woman was DOA and the man was in critical condition and not expected to survive.
Lily's nerves tingled when she remembered a phone call she'd received from Barbie Seldon earlier that day after she'd been unable to reach Lily's parents...
Lily and Charlie were waiting with a couple of the attending physicians when the first ambulance arrived. She nearly went into hysterics when she saw it was her father. Barbie's dream had become her nightmare. "Oh, my God! Daddy!! Where's Mama?!!" she cried as she grabbed his hand and hurried alongside as they wheeled him into an examination room.
He grasped desperately onto his daughter's hand as he spoke brokenly. "Ohhh, Lily... my beautiful spring Lily... it's not good, baby. I couldn't get your Mama to talk to me... after the crash. I tried to avoid it... but the other car still came at us and smashed right into us... the impact threw your mother onto me. I held her in my arms... and kept talking to her until police and the ambulances arrived... but she never responded. I'm so afraid she's gone..." he grated hoarsely as he started to cry.
"Daddy... please!!! Don't think like that!" she pleaded desperately as tears filled her eyes. She was trying to calm her father when Charlie laid his left hand on her father's chest and closed his eyes for a few moments. He frowned and then looked straight into her eyes and shook his head gravely. She wanted to go into hysterics... her father wasn't going to make it.
The ambulance transporting her mother arrived a few minutes later. The crew had already pronounced her dead at the scene but her father had refused to let them take him until they promised to try to revive his wife.
It didn't work... Maria Wilson was killed when her neck had been snapped at the moment of impact. Her last thought when she saw the headlights coming right at her had been that if she was going to die, she hoped it would be in the arms of the man she loved as she turned toward her husband at the last second...
Larry Wilson looked at his daughter and asked if her mother had survived, but he already knew the answer. "I'm so sorry, my Lily... but I can't make it without your mother. I love you, but she was my life!" Then he looked at Charlie, "You take care of my Lily, young man... Love her the way I love my Maria..." he whispered before he closed his eyes and took his last breath.
**********
Charlie and Lily were given a week off to take care of personal matters. Lily was in shock, operating on automatic pilot as Charlie and his family and Rick and Dawn Estevez helped her with the funeral arrangements for her parents. Lily thought how ironic it was that she was just a little older than her mother had been when she'd lost her parents in an auto accident.
That had been the night Maria had fallen in love with Larry when he and Rick had been the officers assigned to inform her that her parents had been killed. Lily still recalled the strange expression on her mother's face when she'd told her the sad story of that night, three years before the night Lily had been conceived. Her mother had looked so lost... and yet hopeful at the same time when she'd described how safe she'd felt in her future husband's arms even as she'd realized that she was all alone in the world...
It had taken Maria three years to work up the courage to try to make Larry see that they were meant for each other. She had known it the moment he'd taken her in his arms... she'd always been able to tell by just a touch if a person was trustworthy or not... and Lily had inherited her mother's "gift." Maria had been confused by Larry's womanizing ways when she'd followed him from time to time during those years... he never "dated" women... he and Rick had only wanted them for sex.
She didn't learn until Larry tracked her down nearly nine months after their one night of passion when she'd shared herself with him and Rick that he was simply afraid of having his heart broken the way his mother had broken his father's heart. But when he'd witnessed the love between Rick and Dawn Estevez the night Rick shared Dawn with him just to fulfill a fantasy for her, he'd realized that true love was possible...
Maria Delgado had been all alone in trying to deal with the aftermath of her parents' deaths, but Lily Wilson was surrounded by her father's family and friends... people she'd also considered family all of her life. But the only person who really mattered was Charlie... he was her rock. He never strayed from her side during those first days, holding her as she cried herself to sleep each night and during the funeral service on Saturday morning, January 3, 1981.
That day, during the gathering after the funeral at the Wilson's home in Brentwood Heights, Lily took Charlie aside. "I don't want to wait any longer... marry me now... please?!!"
He put his hands on her face and stared into her ocean blue eyes swimming with tears. "Are you sure, Lily? I don't want you to feel you have to do this just because you're afraid of losing me. I'll always be here for you... whether you marry me or not! I love you, Lily... you know I've always wanted you to be my wife, but you're the one who wanted to wait until we were through med school because you were afraid we wouldn't be able to handle the pressures and that it would tear us apart! If you marry me, I'm not going to let you go... ever!!! So you'd better be sure this is what you really want!" he stated earnestly.
When Lily nodded and threw herself against him, Charlie held her tightly for a moment, silently thanking the heavens for finally making Lily realize that she'd only been postponing the inevitable! She'd heard too many horror stories from doctors and other med students who'd talked about how their hectic lives had torn their marriages apart. Charlie had tried to make her see that those others had obviously not found and married their soul mates... if they had, they'd still be married no matter how hectic their lives were!
