Clara Immerwahr and her husband to be Fritz Haber are both young and gifted chemists. Their struggle for acknowledgment in nationalistic Germany during World War I lead to the development and use of the first chemical weapons.

Lukas is Sugar, Clemens is Orange. Together, they are two ten-year-old boys who are inseparable. More than just playmates, they share a unique bond which seems predestined to last a lifetime. Until, that is, powerful emotions come to the fore and a misunderstanding leads to a rift which tears both them and their world apart. Twenty years later, Lukas is still terrified of being abandoned. He survives by forming loose relationships which don't threaten him. Then one day he meets Lena who turns his feelings upside down and awakens his inner child, the one still searching for unconditional friendship. While there is never a guarantee of security, there is a bond of trust, and through Lena, Lukas again makes contact with Clemens. After years of silence, they are finally able to exorcise their ghosts in an explosion of emotion.

Jana hits a man who crosses the road without looking at her. Even though she is not to blame, the thought of Tom, who is now in a coma, never leaves her mind. One day he stands in front of her, complaining about what has happened - but no one can see him except her. He struggles with the fact that he appears to be a ghost....

Austria in the mid-1950s. Seamstress Elfi Redlich and her two children are about to emigrate to America with occupation officer Hal when her husband, missing for eleven years, returns home from Siberia. Factory owner Ulmendorff is deported to Russia on his way to his niece Valerie's wedding as a result of an intrigue by his employee Hasak. Hasak's joy is short-lived, as the Jewish owner of the factory asserts his ownership.

October 1960. Nineteen-year-old Charlie tries his luck as a rock 'n' roll musician on the Reeperbahn. His mother Elfi has her hands full with her sick mother, her unstable husband Viktor, daughter Moni, who finally wants to stand on her own two feet, and her job as a tailor. The Berkowitz family factory is thriving, and even the Ulmendorff sawmill in Salzburg has something to say about the emerging economic miracle. Ferencz dies in a car accident. His wife Valerie is pregnant by her lover, the painter Ramsacher. And the cunning Hasak continues to devise intrigues for his own benefit, which even in the 1960s does not seem to be the case.

In the Rhineland in the 1960s, Hans Gunter, a rather shy young man in his mid-twenties, is one of the top players in the country at Tipp-Kick— a tabletop soccer game. When one of the metal figure players accidentally falls into a bath of photo-chemicals, it comes to life as a blond young football star, creating havoc in the life of its owner.

Franka Lauth leads a luxurious life. Thanks to her top job in a Berlin advertising agency, she can afford a penthouse, a chic convertible and, by the way, a sofa for 4,500 euros. Her soaring comes to an abrupt end when Franka's ore competitor Markus Spreng steals the presentation documents for a spectacular campaign. Her faint-hearted boss, Roland Kunze, doesn't believe Franka, who then quits in anger.

The dreamy, young Munich-born Lilly inherits the house of her godfather Gianni, a winding, picturesque weathered palazzo in the heart of Venice. The other half inherits Francesco, who is to come up as a wealthy hotelier for the maintenance and Lilly likes right off the bat. While Lilly is wondering if Francesco is even Gianni's son, the two get closer. But Lilly has scruples about destroying Francesco's relationship with Giovanna. When her mother Teresa and her father Max arrive in Venice, Lilly learns a long-guarded family secret that finally shakes her tight-knit world.

Humans who can shapeshift into animals struggle to integrate with others without revealing their special abilities. As a group, they strive to inform and institute change in the perspective of deforestation and the importance of natural habitats. However, when that cannot happen, they're forced to take matters into their own hands.