Total Strangers

Disclaimer: I don't own anything related to Red Eye!

Summary: Her mother's dying words answered the one question she'd wondered for years. But was losing her mother worth gaining her father? JxL.

Prologue

It's not very often that someone could pin-point the exact moment their entire life self-destructed.

I was one of those few people who could.

It was a sticky summer day in Dallas, Texas. I'd been playing a few doors down with one of my best friends. Unfortunately, it was time for dinner and I was sent home. I walked down the street dejectedly and let myself into our small house.

For as long as I can remember, it's always been just me and my mother. My father was never in the picture. I didn't even know his name or what he looked like. My mother assured me over and over again that I was better off without him in my life. I never understood why until I stepped in a pool of warm blood.

Like most sensible people, I screamed.

"Rebecca," my mother's voice called.

"Mom?"

That was when I realized it was her blood I'd walked in. My mother, my beautiful mother, was lying on the cheep linoleum floor of our foyer.

And she was bleeding everywhere.

I bent down beside her, no longer worried about the blood touching my skin. "Mom, what happened? Are you okay?"

She shook her head. "They found me…" She paused to cough, red liquid dribbling from her delicate mouth. "Couldn't let them find him."

"Find who?" I was confused for the first time that day. Well, aside from coming home to my mother's blood.

"Your father…"

A chill ran down my spine. She never talked about him voluntarily.

"Whatever happens… find Jackson Rippner. Find your father, Becca."

"Where…where is he?"

She pressed a paper into my hand. It was coated in her blood. I looked at it strangely.

"There… tell him I loved him…"

"Mom… mom?"

"Love you…" she whispered and her green eyes closed.

I was still sobbing when the police came twenty minutes later.

Author's Notes:

I came up with the idea behind this story almost a year ago. As many of you know, today is my birthday and also the anniversary (two years, believe it or not) of the day I started writing Red Eye fan fics. I know I'm still working on Guilty As Charged, but I couldn't pass up my tradition of beginning a fic on this day.

Anyways, enjoy and please review! Thanks for reading!