Title: Today
Author: podga
Pairing: Gil/Nick
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: CSI and its characters do not belong to me. I write and post for fun only.
Summary: Yesterday is but today’s memory, tomorrow is today’s dream - Kahlil Gibran
Nick wakes up to a world he doesn’t recognize.

Opening my eyes shouldn’t be this hard. My eyelids feel thick and gummy, like they’ve been glued together, and when I manage to part them a little, I think the glare is going to blind me. Still, I don’t need to see to know that I’m in a hospital; the familiar steady bleeping of monitors, and the smell of antiseptic, which hides something sharp and unpleasant underneath, make it extremely obvious. I’m lying flat on my back, and I’m aware of various aches and pains, but nothing too serious. I flex my fingers and toes and everything seems like it’s still in place.

“I think he moved,” says a male voice I don’t recognize. “Hey, Nick. Nick! Wake up.”

The light still seems way too bright, and it takes me a little while to focus on the man standing next to the bed and bending over me.

“What happened?” My voice sounds weak and rusty, and not like mine at all.

“You gave us a big scare is what happened,” the man says. He smiles, his green eyes crinkling at the corners. “Shit, man, what were you thinking?”

I feel a painful pull on my forehead as I frown, and I reach up to feel around the sides of a bandage. “I don’t know. I don’t remember.”

The man punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Well, right now Ecklie is probably tearing Grissom a new one for sending you out there on your own.”

I have no idea what or who he’s talking about, but the guy’s definitely handsome, and he seems to think he knows me. This would be a good thing if we were in a bar. And if Rory wasn’t in the picture. Come to think of it, where the hell is Rory? We weren’t in a car accident or something, were we?

“Where’s Rory?”

“Who?”

“My partner. Is he okay?”

The guy’s smile seems to slip a little.

“Maybe I’d better let the doc take a look at you,” he says and his face is replaced by that of a middle-aged man with a shiny dome.

“Mr. Stokes? How are you feeling? Any pain?”

“No, I’m okay,” I say impatiently. I don’t like the fact that the doctor and Mr. Handsome are both ignoring my direct question. In my experience, that’s never spelled good news. “Where’s Rory? Rory Powell. Was he in the accident with me?”

The doctor looks at Mr. Handsome uncertainly. “Mr. Brown?”

Brown shakes his head. “Nick, you were at a scene. About two tons of garbage rolled over you. It’s a good thing the landfill personnel saw where you vanished and were able to help dig you out. I don’t know who this Rory is, but nobody else was hurt. Don’t you remember?”

“I- No, I don’t.”

My eyes are fully accustomed to the light now, and I look out the window, trying to gather my thoughts. For the first time I feel serious pain, as the shock of an unfamiliar skyline causes me to try and jerk upright.

“Where the hell am I?”

Brown raises his eyebrows. “Desert Palm. Nick, are you alright?”

No. Something is seriously wrong, but I have no idea what, and, if I’m honest, it’s starting to scare the bejesus out of me.

“Yeah. Just a little wonky from the painkillers,” I say, hoping that’s actually the case, and the doctor smiles slightly.

“You’ll find that will pass quickly, Mr. Stokes. Now, as for injuries: You fractured your left tibia, but luckily it’s at the bottom third, right near the ankle, so you can expect a complete recovery within 8 weeks or so. Your left elbow was dislocated, but we’ve set that, and it shouldn’t give you any trouble. We were a little more concerned about the head injury; despite your helmet, you sustained a serious gash to your forehead, which required six stitches, and although you were conscious when you arrived here, you were also delirious.”

I should be paying more attention to what the doctor is saying, but I can’t help concentrating on the view out the window, trying to remember where the hell I’ve seen that skyline before. Maybe on TV? I tune in to what the doctor is saying just in time to catch the tail end of a question.

“…tell me your name?”

“Nick Stokes.” I wonder if I should have used the more formal Nicholas.

“What’s today? The date?”

“I don’t know. How long have I been out of it?”

The doctor smiles. “Just the month and year will do.”

“Okay. October 1997.”

The doctor stares at me with a fixed expression on his face. “You’re sure?”

“Yes.” What the hell?

“Mr. Stokes, do you know this man?” the doctor asks, gesturing towards Brown.

I don’t really need to look at Brown to respond, but I stare at him nevertheless, because I’m getting the uneasy feeling that both the doctor and Brown himself expect me to say yes.

“No.”

“Nick!” Brown exclaims, and the doctor raises his hand, one finger extended, indicating that Brown should be quiet.

“Mr. Stokes, do you know where we are?”

I look out of the window again. “Well, I know I’m not in Dallas. But that’s where I should be.” I take a deep breath, trying to keep calm. “What’s going on?”

“You seem to have a small gap in your memory, Mr. Stokes. But let’s not worry about that yet. Memory loss isn’t uncommon after a blow to the head.”

“How small?” I ask, but they both avoid my eyes. “How small?” I repeat, my voice harder.

Brown and the doctor exchange glances and then the doctor makes a gesture, as if surrendering: Go ahead.

“Nick. It’s August 23, 2004,” Brown says. “You’re in Las Vegas. You’re a CSI with the LVPD, and we’ve worked together since 1999. My name is Warrick. Warrick Brown.”

“What?” I don’t know why Brown is lying, but he must be. Not remembering the accident, maybe even a couple of hours before, that’s normal. This is all kinds of crazy.

“Why don’t we let you get some rest, Mr. Stokes. And try not to worry. Really, this isn’t at all uncommon and the effects are rarely lasting.”

The doctor ushers Brown out of the room and I’m glad to see both their backs. I lift my hands and study them carefully; except for a few recent scrapes and bruises, and for the fact that I can’t seem to hold them quite steady, they don’t look any different to me. Surely they would have changed a little if I’d really lost seven years somewhere. Hell, even a paper cut can leave a scar.

 

It’s nighttime when I wake up. The moonlight is almost abnormally bright as it streams through the window and casts weird shadows in the room. Maybe the whole thing was a nightmare. Except that that’s still not Dallas outside my window.

“Fuck,” I whisper.

There’s a faint sound in the corner of the room.

“Who’s that?” I ask, my voice shaky. “Who’s there?” I can’t explain the sudden overwhelming panic at the thought of someone in the same room with me, hiding in the dark, watching me. Jesus, I’ve got to get a grip. It’s a hospital after all, there are bound to be people coming in and out and checking on me all the time.

“It’s just me, Nick.”

The man gets up and walks towards me, and it’s all I can do to keep from shrinking away. The moonlight is on his back so I can’t see his face, but he has curly hair and a beard, and it looks like he’s wearing some sort of a badge around his neck. He stops a couple of steps from my bed, and I slowly relax.

“Am I supposed to know you?”

“We’ve been told it’s probably better to let you figure things out on your own.”

I close my eyes, concentrating on his voice, trying to recognize something, anything, an inflection, an accent, but I’m almost 100% sure this is the first time I’ve ever heard it. And if I didn’t know him, he would have just said so.

“I’ll take that as a yes.”

“How are you feeling?”

What kind of a stupid ass question is that? How does this idiot think I’m feeling?

“What’s your name?” I ask instead.

The man hesitates a second.

“Grissom. Gil Grissom,” he says finally.

The name sounds vaguely familiar, but then I realize that Brown mentioned it a few hours ago. At least I hope it was only a few hours ago, and that I haven’t lost another couple of years along the way. Something about somebody tearing Grissom a new one for sending me somewhere. Which would make Grissom my boss or a dispatch sergeant or something.

“Do I report to you?”

Another long pause, and it sets my teeth on edge. If it’s really true that I’ve simply forgotten seven years from one moment to the next, wouldn’t it make more sense if people told me just what the fuck is supposed to have happened in the meantime? It’s going to get old really fast if everybody has to be careful with what they say to me. Hell, it’s already old.

“It’s not that hard a question. Do I report to you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you in trouble?”

I see his head jerk in surprise.

“In trouble? Why would I be in trouble?”

“Something that guy Brown mentioned.” Even as I say it, it feels odd. ‘That guy Brown’ is somebody I’ve supposedly worked with for five or six years. I wonder if I’ve known Grissom as long, and how long I’ve worked for him. I wonder how I ended up in Vegas in the first place. And where the hell is Rory? And my family?

“Your parents and Karen will be here tomorrow morning,” Grissom says, and I realize I’ve spoken aloud. Great. Not only have I lost my memory, but I’m clearly starting to lose my mind, as well. Grissom doesn’t mention anything about Rory, but maybe he doesn’t know him. Maybe we’re not together any more, and that’s why I’m here. No, that’s impossible. Rory and I, we’re…

“I need you to tell me something and I don’t give a fuck what anybody thinks you should be telling me or not. Rory Powell. Do you recognize the name?”

“Yes,” he says, this time without hesitation.

Relief floods through me. Grissom is my supervisor; he wouldn’t know about Rory unless we’d formalized our relationship. Shit. That means I’ve come out to my parents. Unless I didn’t? Is that why we moved to Vegas? I keep on waiting for a floodgate of memories to open, but there’s nothing. Hell, there isn’t even a trickle, a single drop.

“Where is he?”

I somehow know what he’s going to say even before he says it. Maybe it’s a memory, but it feels more like a premonition.

“Rory died of AIDS-related complications in 1998.”

Grief rips through me, as if it happened yesterday. Which I guess it sort of did, for me. Or actually, it hasn’t even happened yet, I think stupidly, trying to breathe, trying not to cry in front of this stranger.

I should wait until tomorrow, ask Karen at a moment when my parents aren’t around, because how would Grissom know anyway? How can I possibly not remember? What kind of man does that make me, that I would forget?

“Was I with him?” I almost don’t recognize my own voice.

He does something totally unexpected then. He comes closer and leans over me, his elbow on the pillow, and he cups my head with his hand.

“Yeah, Nicky. You were with him to the end,” he says gently, and somehow it doesn’t feel wrong to cry anymore, or to hold onto him as he sits on the side of the bed and wraps his arms around me. I don’t even know what he looks like, but he feels solid and real in a world that is suddenly neither.

“Hey, Pancho! What did you do to yourself this time?”

My dad bends over to hug me, careful not to jar me, and I’m glad for those seconds that he hides my face from everybody’s view. I thought I was coming to terms with not remembering seven years, but the moment I see my parents, how old they ‘suddenly’ look, I realize that in some ways I’ve been thinking of the gap as stopped time, as me simply being left behind and needing to catch up, rather than as lost time. What if I don’t get my memory back? How will I make up for having lost all these years with my loved ones? And how will I make up for having lost my last year with Rory?

In the past, memories always seemed like a poor second to actual living, almost a booby prize for having lost someone or something, but now that I don’t have them, it’s as if a big and important chunk of my life has been taken from me, maybe for ever.

“Don’t think for a second that pretending you don’t remember means you’ll get away with not paying me that hundred grand I lent you last year,” Karen chirps. She, at least, looks exactly as I remember her.

“I’m sorry, ma’am, but I don’t believe I know you,” I grin. “Mom, Cisco, who’s this middle-aged lady you’ve brought with you? Ouch! Quit it!”

My sister lets go of my earlobe and kisses me on the cheek.

“How are you, Nick?” she asks.

Her concern is a lot harder to deal with than her joking, and I swallow against the sudden lump in my throat. “I’m okay. Uh, you know.”

She nods, but it’s clear from her face that she doesn’t know. None of them do. Hell, even I don’t know.

“What did the doctors say?” Cisco asks.

I shrug. “Nothing. It’s not uncommon. It’ll come back. Or maybe not. I shouldn’t try to force remembering. Or maybe I should. Give it time. Don’t worry.”

He frowns. “Has a specialist evaluated your condition?”

He asks like he doesn’t believe I’ll have had the common sense to ask for a specialist myself, or like it’s my fault that he or she still hasn’t seen me. If I figured out how to keep my temper when dealing with my dad in the past seven years, it’s lost to me now.

“Not yet. Later this afternoon.”

He nods in satisfaction. “Good. I know a good man in Dallas, as well, so as soon they sign you out of here, we can arrange for you to come home.”

Going back to Dallas makes sense, until my leg heals and I can get around on my own steam. And if I still haven’t recovered my memory after that, it’s better to stay there, than return to a city I don’t know, trying to do a job I probably no longer have the skill set for. Right before my parents and Karen arrived, I’d decided to ask my Mom if I could move back in for a while. But this is precisely the problem with my dad and me. He peremptorily assumes certain things, and suddenly I don’t want to do them anymore.

 “Isn’t my home here now?”

His lips thin. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“Why don’t we wait and see what the specialist says first,” my mom, ever the peacemaker, jumps in.

Both Cisco and I nod. My mom is not someone you cross easily.

 

It feels like ages until my parents can be convinced to go down to the cafeteria for a cup of coffee.

“You need to fill me in,” I tell Karen urgently the moment they’re out of the room.

“I don’t know, Nick. From what I’ve read–”

“Listen!” I interrupt her. “Listen, I don’t care, okay? I don’t care what anybody says. There are a couple of things I need to know.”

She nods, but it’s clear from her crossed arms and her frown that she’s agreeing against her better judgment.

“Do Mom and Dad know I’m gay?”

She shakes her head.

“Why did I come here then, Karen? Why did I leave Dallas?”

She purses her lips and doesn’t say anything, and it frustrates me beyond belief. With only 16 months separating us, Karen and I have always been close and shared each other’s secrets. It’s inconceivable to me that she would now keep my secrets even from me.

“Oh, come on!” I explode. “Jesus, Karen! Please, okay? Please!”

 “I don’t know, Nick. You never said. I figured that after Rory–”

She clams up suddenly.

“I know what happened to Rory.”

“How? Are there parts you remember?” she asks curiously.

“Gil Grissom told me.”

She looks puzzled.

“He’s my supervisor,” I explain.

“I know who he is. But how would he know?”

She’s right. It hadn’t occurred to me until now to wonder about that, but how would Grissom have known about Rory and about the fact that I didn’t run out on him?

“Oh, Jesus, Nick,” she breathes. “You’re not HIV-positive, are you?”

“No!” I blurt out, and then I realize that I have no idea whether I am or not. “What has that got to do with anything, anyway?” I ask, trying to follow the less scary train of thought.

“Maybe you found out, tied one on in despair, and cried on his shoulder?”

I stare at her for a couple of seconds. “You’re still reading those Harlequin romances, aren’t you?”

She grins, but quickly grows serious again.

“Nick, I’m… Well, I don’t want to be here under false pretenses.”

“What do you mean?”

“I can tell that you’re assuming that we’re still close. And we are. I mean, I love you, you’re my brother and everything, and I know you love me, but we’re not like we were.”

“What do you mean?” I ask again, because it’s all I can think to say. What the hell has happened to my life?

“We had a fight a little before you left Dallas. I said something really stupid to you, and we haven’t spoken much since then.”

I shake my head. “Come on, Karen. You’re my sister. You’re my best friend. What could you have said that I wouldn’t have forgiven you for three seconds later?”

Her eyes are suddenly suspiciously bright. “It was pretty unforgivable, Nick. And I wish there was some way I could take it back, or that that this could be the one thing you don’t remember, when you get your memory back.”

“It couldn’t have been that terrible,” I say again, but she just mumbles something I can’t make out and turns away to stare out of the window.

I stare at her profile and find it unimaginable that Karen, my partner in crime, the only person in my family who knows I’m gay, said something that I couldn’t find it in myself to forgive her for. And I’m not sure what I should be wishing for any more: to remember what happened, or to simply let sleeping dogs lie.

 

The specialist isn’t very encouraging. He’s not discouraging either, of course. He just won’t commit to anything. After an hour, I know nothing more about my chances of recovery than I did before, or even if there’s anything I can do to improve them.

“So, is it okay for people to tell me what happened during this period?”

He stares fixedly over my left shoulder at the wall, and I have to fight the instinct to turn around and check what the hell he’s seeing there.

“Ah, really, Mr. Stokes, it’s better if your memory returns on its own.”

“But what if it doesn’t? People telling me stuff isn’t going to harm me in any way, is it?”

“Who can say? Not physically, of course not, but psychologically? It’s better not to force any issues. Your mind is obviously trying to protect itself.”

“From what?”

He switches to staring over my right shoulder. “Who can say?”

I’m almost happy to turn the questioning over to Cisco. By the end of their conversation the specialist is concentrating on the floor right in front of his shoes and my dad looks like he’s about to stroke out. It’s probably immature of me to be so happy at the thought that they both got what they deserved, but hey, I’m actually seven years younger than what my ID says.

 

After the specialist leaves, Cisco is determined that I’m returning home with them, even if he has to personally carry me out of the hospital. And since I have no rational reason for not wanting to return to Dallas other than that my dad is pissing me off, we just keep on going around in circles. My mom tries to intervene a few times, but by this point Cisco and I are too far gone to pay any attention to her or worry about getting her upset, and Karen is Switzerland. I’m relieved when the nurse comes to tell us that visiting hours are over, and that they need to come back tomorrow.

Once they’re gone, I close my eyes and lie back, but I can’t keep my mind from racing in a dozen different directions at once. There are so many things that I don’t know, big things, like whether I’m healthy, and what I’m going to do when I get out of the hospital, and little things, like what kind of a car I drive, and whether I’ve found a place in Vegas that makes good chili. I try to rank everything in order of importance, figure out what I need to deal with immediately and what can wait, but I can’t calm down enough to do so.

I open my eyes at the sound of the door opening. From his hair, beard and general appearance I recognize Gil Grissom, and now that the light is on, I can see that his hair is light brown and graying, and that he has blue eyes. I’m not sure about his age, probably late forties.

“Did I wake you?” he asks.

“No. What are you doing here?” I also wonder how he manages to get around visiting hours, but I guess the LVPD badge hanging around his neck helps.

“I thought I’d stop by and see how you’re doing.” He’s still standing at the door, as if waiting for permission to come further into the room.

“I’m better, thanks. Still can’t remember anything, though.”

He takes a small step towards me, letting the door swing closed behind him, and puts his hands in his pockets.

“That must be frustrating,” he says finally.

“Yeah.” I’m not quite sure what to say to him, but I don’t want him to leave either. Talking to him is better than lying here thinking about what I can’t remember. “Are you on your way home?”

“Work.”

“What, now?” I look at the clock on the wall and suddenly I make the connection. “I work graveyard?” I ask in disbelief.

“I’m afraid so,” he smiles. “You make it sound like a fate worse than death.”

“Jesus, I couldn’t even party much past midnight when I was student. I used to be a morning person.”

“Well, you’re not a night person, that’s for sure. Six reprimands on your file for falling asleep on the job, four for never even showing up for your shift.”

I gape at him, and after a second he laughs.

“Oh. Ha ha. You know, I’m pretty sure that lying to me is probably just as bad for me as actually telling me what’s been going on.”

He grins, then comes over and sits sideways at the foot of the bed, so that I don’t have to strain my neck to look at him.

“What did the doctors say?’

“Nothing,” I say bitterly. “Absolutely nothing. My parents want me to go to Dallas with them, at least until my leg heals.”

“Are you?”

I shrug. “I don’t know. It’s probably for the best.”

“Uh huh.” He sits silently, and I try not to stare at him, as I look for something, anything, that will trigger a memory.

“It doesn’t make much sense, though,” he says quietly, as if he’s thinking out loud.

“What doesn’t?”

“Your leaving. There are more things to jog your memory here than in Dallas. After all, you haven’t been back for over five years.”

“I haven’t?”

He shakes his head.

“How would you know?” I ask suspiciously.

He shrugs. “We work together. I approve your leave. You’ve never mentioned going back to Dallas, or even wanting to go back.”

For the umpteenth time since I woke up yesterday, I feel like I’ve stepped into an alternative reality. I know my dad and I don’t get along, but I love him, and I love my mom and brother and sisters, and my nephews and nieces. I’d never stay away for that long. I just wouldn’t.

“You must have that wrong,” I say.

“Maybe so,” he concedes, but it’s clear from his tone of voice that he’s just humoring me. He has a point though; maybe it’s better to try and get back into my normal routines as soon as possible.

“I probably wouldn’t be able to come to work until my leg heals,” I say.

“I don’t see why not. Once you’re up and about, even on crutches, there’s a lot you could do in the lab. If you wanted to come back, of course.”

We both leave unsaid that it’s not my leg that’s the real problem; it’s my head. I’ve heard of cases, where people forgot everything, even their names, but carried on working normally. I’m hoping that it will be the same for me, but I don’t know that yet.

“Was I any good?”

“You are very good, and given some more experience, you’ll be one of the best,” he says firmly.

“Assuming this doesn’t fuck everything up for me,” I say, pointing to my head.

“Why don’t we cross that bridge if and when we get to it.”

We sit in silence for a while. He’s a peaceful kind of guy to be with; he doesn’t fidget and it doesn’t look like much rattles him. I wonder if he’s a good supervisor. If I judge by the amount of time he’s spending with me, he must be, but he doesn’t look like the type you’d go for a beer with after shift. Then I remember that we work graveyard, and I wonder if, and how, we socialize after work. And since I seem to have cut myself off from my family, maybe I’m not as outgoing as I used to be. Do I even have friends in Las Vegas? Certainly nobody seems to have come looking for me, although maybe people don’t know I’m in hospital, and I no longer remember who I need to get in touch with. My phone was one of the first things I asked for, but nobody could account for it.

He glances at his watch and gets up.

“I need to leave. Are you okay?”

“I’m fine. Thanks.”

He opens the door and turns back to look at me.

“The rest of the team send their wishes. They’d like to come see you.”

I don’t know how I feel about that; right now, they’re strangers to me. Still, so is Grissom, and so far spending time with him hasn’t been a problem. In fact, it’s been nice.

“I’m not sure,” I say finally. “Maybe in a couple of days.”

“Okay.”

I wonder if he’s going to come visit me again, but it doesn’t feel right to ask. He’s already done more that could be expected of a supervisor, handling my breakdown last night and actually being willing to come back tonight.

“Can I ask you something?”

He nods.

“What do I call you? Gil?”

He looks startled by my question. Then he smiles.

“Yes,” he says gruffly. “That’s what you call me.”

He gives me a small awkward wave goodbye, and the door closes behind him.

The orderly bringing me breakfast wakes me from a bad dream, in which a very ill-looking Rory is crying and accusing me of lying to him. I knew Rory was HIV-positive when we started dating, but during the time that I remember, he was never sick and I never saw him cry. I must have seen him ill, even if I don’t remember it. Did I lie to him, and if so, about what? I shove the breakfast tray away and try to sit up. God, I hate being trapped here, unable to even go to the toilet.

Unable to remember.

 

My mood doesn’t improve when my parents and sister show up. Cisco barely greets me; instead he tells me that he spoke to the “good man” in Dallas, and that he’s willing to arrange a consultation for me the moment I’m in town.

“When is that, by the way? When are they releasing you?”

“They want to make sure my elbow is strong enough for me to use crutches. I’ve got an appointment with the physiotherapist in about an hour. But Dad, I told you, this is my home now; it’s been my home for the past five years. If anything is going to start me remembering again, it’s here.”

“It doesn’t work that way,” he argues. “This isn’t—”

“Stop it! This is my life and my problem. You don’t get to make the decisions for me!”

“Nick, honey, it would be easier for you, if you were home with your family. At least until your leg heals,” my mom intervenes.

When I was kid, I figured out the difference between being arrogant and being assertive and confident by observing my parents. My father was mostly the first, and my mother was always the second. Yet now she sounds diffident, almost timid, and suddenly, something Gil said last night doesn’t seem so preposterous any more.

“When’s the last time I was in Dallas, Mom?”

“Don’t take that tone with your mother,” my dad bristles, but I ignore him, even though I hadn’t consciously meant to sound as accusing as I did.

“Mom?”

A tear trickles down my mom’s cheek and she looks away.

“Thanksgiving of 1998,” Karen says quietly. “You left Dallas in early December.”

 “We haven’t been in contact since then?” I ask in disbelief.

“Oh, you call. You send the occasional e-mail for our birthdays and the holidays,” Cisco says bitterly. “I suppose we should feel honored that you deign to acknowledge that we still exist.”

“But why? What happened?”

I search their faces for answers, and I can’t tell if they really don’t know or if, like Karen yesterday, they simply don’t want to say. Then another thought occurs to me.

“If it’s that bad between us, why are you here?”

“You’re our son,” Cisco says. “We thought you needed us. Obviously we were wrong.”

He no longer looks or sounds angry, merely resigned.

“You know, Nick, for a long time after you left I asked myself what it was we did, and how I could fix it. Once I knew you weren’t badly hurt, I thought this thing might actually be a godsend; maybe it would give us some time to patch up whatever it was that caused the rift. But I finally figured it out. It’s not really us, is it? You don’t remember anything since before you cut us off, and yet you still treat us with the same animosity. Well, don’t worry, son. You don’t want to be with us? No problem.”

He puts his arms around my mom and sister, and he shepherds them both towards the door. I almost call out to them in order to apologize, to plead with them to stay, but finally I just watch them go. I made a choice about my family a long time ago; maybe I shouldn’t go second-guessing myself, just because I don’t remember why.

I wonder if I felt worse about all this the first time around, though it doesn’t seem possible to feel more awful than I do right now, and how long it took me to get over it, assuming I ever did.

 

“They tell me you haven’t been eating.”

He’s earlier than the last two nights, actually within visiting hours. He looks tired, and this time he doesn’t come in by bits and pieces like last night, but walks straight to the bed and almost collapses into a sitting position at the foot of it.

“Oh, hey,” I say, relieved to see him. I didn’t really expect that he’d visit again, but now that he’s here, I can admit to myself that I’d hoped he would.

In the morning, the physiotherapist decided that my elbow is in good enough shape to take the brace off, and I’m a little more mobile now. I push myself up and scoot back, dragging my right leg in its heavy cast along the mattress, until I’m sitting up as well.

“You don’t look too well,” he says after peering at me over his glasses for a bit. He wasn’t wearing them the previous two nights, and I wonder if he needs them when he’s tired, or if he’s just forgotten he’s wearing them.

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” he says, ignoring my sarcasm. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I mutter sullenly. Way to go, Nick! I finally get a visit from someone I don’t appear to share a loaded past with, and I’m doing my best to chase him away, too.

“You don’t look too well, either,” I say.

He smiles faintly. “Gee, thanks,” he says, then rubs the back of his neck. “Double shift. I just came off.”

I stare at him, as he rolls his head, as if he’s trying to loosen the tension in his shoulders, his eyes shut. The thought that he stopped by to see me again, despite his obvious tiredness, does something funny to my chest. 

“Tough case?” I ask.

“Not particularly. Just a lot of loose ends to tie up. And we’re short one,” he says with a brief smile.

“How many are we?”

“You mean in the team?”

I nod.

“Five. Catherine, Warrick, Sara and the two of us.”

Warrick I met, or rather, re-met, two days ago. The other two names mean nothing to me.

“And we’ve been together how long?”

He doesn’t respond immediately. “Why don’t you wait a bit, Nicky? When you start to remember, maybe it’s better if you don’t have to wonder whether it’s an actual memory or just something I told you.”

His faith that I’ll regain my memory is somehow comforting, and I nod.

“Any idea when they’re going to let you go?”

I shrug. “They said something about the day after tomorrow. My elbow’s in good shape, so I should be able to get around on crutches okay. All I need to do is figure out where I live and get myself there.”

“Thursday’s my day off. I can pick you up and take you home.”

I don’t respond immediately and he makes a small dismissive gesture. “But I’m sure your parents can do that.” He flicks a glance at his watch, and I realize he’s getting ready to leave.

“My parents left today,” I say hastily, and he looks up. I don’t know if it’s his laser-like focus on me or his blue eyes that make me feel a little breathless. I’ve always been a sucker for blue eyes.

“To Dallas?” he asks.

“Yeah. I guess you were right. I haven’t been back there in a long time. It’s better if I figure things out here. Or at least, try to.” I try to say it matter-of-factly, but he must hear something in my voice, because his eyes soften.

“Nicky—”

“Why do you call me that?” I interrupt almost angrily, uncomfortable at the feelings he’s arousing in me, and at the same time disliking the insinuation that I’m young or that there’s a big difference in our ages.

He gapes at me for a second. “I’m sorry,” he says formally. “I didn’t know it bothered you.”

“It doesn’t.” His tone makes me feel as if I’m overreacting, which I probably am. “I mean… Well, nobody calls me Nicky.”

He shrugs. “We do,” he says simply, almost affectionately.

“Okay, then,” I mumble, not knowing who “we” is, but maybe it means that I’ve built roots in Vegas, that I’m not quite as alone as I feel right now.

He smiles and puts a hand on my good ankle, squeezing it gently. “So would you like me to come pick you up on Thursday?”

“Yeah. That’ll be good. Thank you, Gil.”

He gives my ankle a little pat and stands up. “I’ve got to go get some sleep before next shift.”

“Thanks for stopping by. And for offering to take me home. It’s very kind of you.”

He seems almost amused at my words, and he doesn’t acknowledge my gratitude. His parting words are “Stop skipping meals.”

It’s the kind of thing that should piss me off, but funnily enough, doesn’t.

 

Gil doesn’t visit me on Wednesday.

I spend the day trying to get used to my crutches. The physical pain, when I accidentally put too much weight on my injured elbow, and the increasing soreness in my armpits serve to distract me from thinking too hard. I still manage to fall into a deep funk, and even the information that I’m not HIV-positive doesn’t lift my spirits. I can’t shake the feeling that I’ve somehow betrayed Rory yet again, even though I know that makes absolutely no sense.

 

Thursday morning I wake up at five o’clock from another dream. In it a clean-shaven, smiling Gil is waving something that looks like a badge, and Warrick is there, as well. I know there are two women in the room with us, but they’re either behind me, or hidden by something, and no matter how hard I look, I never manage to catch a glimpse of them. Then Gil steps up to me and kisses me.

I’m fairly certain that at least the first part of the dream is a memory, although I don’t know what or when the occasion was. The second part obviously isn’t, but I must not be getting any, if just dreaming of a kiss gives me a hard-on. As for why I’d dream of Gil kissing me… well, I’m not going there.

 

I don’t know what time Gil is coming to pick me up; judging by the times he visits, it’ll probably be in the evening. I practice my crutches technique, until I can no longer stand the ache in my armpits, and then I lie down on my bed, studying the skyline outside. Vegas looks pretty ugly in the daytime. I don’t know why I left Dallas and I certainly have no idea why, out of all the cities I could have chosen, I picked Las Vegas to come to.

Gil shows up after lunch. He tosses a shopping bag onto the bed. “I thought you’d want some clothes to walk out here,” he says. “I understand they incinerated the clothes you arrived in.”

“Thanks.” I open the bag, half-expecting to see something of his, but I recognize the T-shirt as being an old favorite of mine almost immediately, and I look up curiously.

“This is mine,” I say.

“From your locker. I’ll wait outside for you, okay?”

I nod absent-mindedly. The sweatpants aren’t familiar, but they’ve obviously been worn. They stretch enough to get over my cast and they feel pretty comfortable, and I figure they’re probably mine, as well. Gil hasn’t thought to bring me socks or shoes, or maybe I don’t leave a full gym bag in my locker, like I used to when I was in Dallas.

He realizes I’m barefoot when I hoist myself out of the wheelchair at the hospital exit and balance on my crutches. “Why don’t you wait here, and I’ll bring the car closer,” he suggests.

“That’s okay,” I say, looking forward to the exercise.

“I really think you should wait.”

“Gil, I’m fine.” He doesn’t object further, just crosses his arms and looks at me, as I take my first step on the asphalt. I swear I can hear the bottom of my foot sizzle, and I hop backwards onto the shaded stone step. “Why don’t I wait here, and you can bring the car closer?”

“You’re sure?”

“You’re not the type that likes to say ‘I told you so,’ are you?”

He grins. “As often as I can.”

I watch him walk unhurriedly across the parking lot to an ancient Mercedes, his hands in his pockets. In the hospital, I hadn’t noticed how bow-legged he is. Or that his ass is seriously hot.

 

I think he’s taking a short-cut through a quiet neighborhood full of old people, so I’m surprised when he pulls into the driveway of a smallish, one-story house.

“I live here?” I ask, eyeing the blue-haired lady sitting on the porch of the neighboring identical house doubtfully.

“Uh huh.”

He gets out of the car, and comes over to my side, my crutches under one arm. He helps me out and gives me the crutches, and I hop off the hot driveway onto the cool, damp grass. He turns around to wave at the old lady, who’s now standing up and observing us.

“Hello, Mrs. McDonnell.”

“Hello, dear. Nick, what did you do to yourself?”

Why does everybody think I did something to myself? Haven’t they ever heard of accidents? And what the hell am I doing living in this retirement community?

“Just a small accident, Mrs. McDonnell,” I say, grateful that Gil mentioned her name first.

“Mrs. McDonnell has a spare set of your keys,” Gil explains in a low voice to me. “I’ll just go get them. Wait here.”

I’m happy to be left alone as I look at my house, hoping for some sense of recognition or familiarity. The problem is that this just doesn’t seem like anything I would choose. At least, not of my own free will. Maybe it’s the only place I could afford. Evidently Las Vegas doesn’t pay its employees any better than Dallas did.

Gil comes back and I follow him up the two stairs of the porch, glad to be out of the direct sunlight. Maybe I picked Las Vegas for the weather, although if I’m working graveyard I’m not likely to be enjoying it much.

Gil unlocks the door and pushes it open, then steps aside so that I can go in first. I swing on my crutches over the welcome mat and into the entranceway, then stand looking around me. I don’t immediately recognize anything, but the inside looks immediately comfortable and welcoming. It feels like home and I smile in relief.

“Okay?” Gil asks behind me, and I realize I’m blocking his way into the house. I move slightly to the side, which also allows me to see into the kitchen. Gil is asking me something, but I don’t hear him as I move further forward, trying to see more of the kitchen counter.

What I’m looking for isn’t there.

“Where…” I mutter under my breath, and I hop over to the sink to look into it.

“Nick?”

It might be broken. Or maybe I don’t have it any more, maybe I left it behind in Dallas. But I have a strong, detailed image of my A&M mug standing on this counter. I open the cabinet over the sink, then two or three more, one crutch clattering to the floor as I reach up, so that I have to hop and steady myself with one hand on the counter.

“Nick, what is it?”

Gil sounds worried and I turn around.

“Nothing. I just thought I remembered something.”

“What?”

I shake my head. “Nothing,” I repeat.

I lean over to pick up my crutch and almost lose my balance, but he’s there, steadying me with one arm wrapped around my ribcage, so that he’s almost hugging me, just like he did in my dream. For a second I allow myself to sag against him, then I realize what I’m doing and I stiffen. He lets me go without appearing to notice anything out of the ordinary.

“Would you like something to drink?” I ask nervously, and I turn from him and open the fridge. It’s completely empty. And then I think I know where my mug might be. I close my eyes and let the door swing shut, and I wait for the slight thud before I speak.

“This might be my house, but I don’t think I actually live here any more,” I say.

Gil doesn’t respond.

“I don’t suppose you know where I do live, do you?” Although he obviously doesn’t, or he wouldn’t have brought me here. Whoever I’m living with must be absolutely frantic. Or it’s more likely he doesn’t give a damn, because he could have found out where I was easily enough from work and come seen me in the hospital. Or maybe I’ve become the type of asshole, who simply vanishes for several days without prior notice. I lean my hot forehead against the fridge, ignoring the pain of the stitches as the bandage presses against the hard surface.

“Yes,” he says unexpectedly.

“You know where I live?” I repeat in order to make sure that he’s actually answering what I asked him.

“Yes.”

I swing around to look at him, and the only reason I’m not angrier that he misled me is that I’m so puzzled by why he’d do such a thing.

“You live with me.”

You live with me.

Gil’s words seem to echo as I try to make sense of them. I don’t know why I was more willing to accept the possibility that I might be in a relationship with an unknown faceless someone than the reality of being in one with Gil, and I can’t figure things out with him standing about a foot in front of me, looking at me with his blue eyes.

I shake my head mutely and shoulder him out of the way, trying to put as much distance between us as possible. He doesn’t attempt to block me or follow me. I stand in the living room looking out the picture window at a view I’m supposed to recognize and don’t, and I take a deep breath, trying to tamp down my growing anger.

I’m not really aware of what I’ve done until I see the crutch break through the picture window. The sound of glass breaking brings Gil running from the kitchen.

“Nick?”

I glare back at him, and I deliberately fling the second crutch through the window, knocking myself off balance in the process. This time he’s not close enough to catch me and I fall, twisting around in order to protect my left elbow and landing heavily on my shoulder. My head bounces off the carpeted floor and explodes in pain, and for a while it’s really bad. I’m aware of Gil crouching next to me, talking to me, but I can’t answer him at first.

Finally I roll over onto my back. “Fuck!” I exhale through gritted teeth.

“Are you okay?”

“I think so. I hit my head again.”

“Did you remember anything?”

“What?”

He shrugs. “Just checking. Sometimes another blow to the head…” His mouth is pulling up at the corners.

“You have a weird sense of humor.” The pain is receding and I sit up, twisting around so that I can lean my back against the couch.

He smiles openly now. “So they tell me.” He stands up and heads for the door. “I’ll go rescue your crutches and reassure the neighbors.”

I lean my head back until it’s resting against the seat cushions and stare up at the ceiling. After my destructive temper tantrum I’m feeling flat and empty, and a bit tired, as well. Did I remember anything. What an asshole. Okay, it’s funny, sort of, but he’s still an asshole.

I can hear him outside now, talking to my octogenarian neighbor.

“No, Mrs. McDonnell. It was an accident.”

Mrs. McDonnell says something I can’t quite make out, and I hear Gil laugh and say goodbye, and a second later he’s inside the house again, still smiling.

“What?”

“Mrs. McDonnell instructed me that next time you want to throw something at me, I should take it like a man and not duck; apparently picture windows are expensive to repair.”

He comes and sits on the floor next to me, laying the crutches between us.

“I’m sorry, Nick,” he says quietly after a while, all traces of humor gone from his voice. “I wasn’t sure how to handle this.”

“Why didn’t you tell me immediately?”

“You asked me about Rory within three seconds of waking up. I had to tell you that he died. What was I supposed to say after that? ‘Oh, by the way, we’re together now?’”

My eyes water at the mention of Rory. It happened a long time ago, it’s obvious from Gil’s presence that I grieved for him and moved on, but right now his loss is fresh to me, and I’m totally unprepared to deal with it. I picture him the way I first saw him, at one of my brother’s parties, a little drunk, laughing uproariously at something; I was still standing at the door, hadn’t even taken my jacket off yet, and I fell in love, right there and then.

And now I’m supposed to be with this man sitting next to me, and I know absolutely nothing about him or about how we met.

“No, I guess I wouldn’t have responded to that too well.”

There’s a slight breeze blowing through the broken window. I should do something about getting it fixed, but I don’t want to move. I turn my head to look at Gil; he’s frowning slightly, his forearms resting on his raised knees. He’s nothing like the extroverted, mercurial Rory, and I imagine that maybe falling in love with him was slow and quiet.

“Gil?”

He turns his head to look at me.

“I’m sorry too.”

He looks away again. “It’s not your fault,” he says. “It’s mine. And I can’t begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I sent you on the trash run.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Trash runs are for rookies,” he interrupts me. “I did what I swore I wouldn’t do. I let our personal relationship affect our professional one.”

“Did we argue or something?”

“Yes.” He doesn’t elaborate.

I reach out and put my hand on his forearm. “Gil…” He looks at me again, and for the first time I don’t see the calm supervisor who has everything under control, but a man in pain. “Were we okay together?” I substitute ‘okay’ for ‘happy’ at the last moment, because, without memory, I feel like an impostor, and that I have no right to be discussing concepts like happiness or love with him.

“Yeah,” he says thickly. “We were.”

I wish I could promise him that we’ll be okay again. Instead, I say the only thing I can. “I forgive you. Even though there’s nothing to forgive. People argue. And it was just a stupid accident.”

He covers my hand with his and doesn’t say anything, and we sit there, our backs against the couch, listening to the sound of a distant land mower and, a little later, of children’s voices.

I realize that my house is in a normal neighborhood, and that this man next to me is my friend, and I let my head fall back against the seat cushion again, feeling at temporary peace with the world. I fall asleep.

 

The sun is setting when I wake up, and I realize Gil is no longer there. I climb awkwardly to my feet and glance outside, but his Mercedes is still parked in the driveway. I pick up the crutches and go to the kitchen. He’s sitting at the table, a glass of water in front of him and he looks lost in thought.

“Hey,” I say softly, so as not to startle him.

He looks up and smiles. “Hi. I called about your window; somebody should be by within the hour to patch it up, until they can get a new one installed.”

I sit down opposite him. “Thanks.”

“I can bring your laptop and clothes tomorrow, but I wondered if you wanted me to do a supermarket run for you in the meantime?”

“So I’m staying here?”

“I assumed you’d prefer it,” he says after a moment’s hesitation.

I guess I would, but this is no longer only about me. I’m not even sure I want it to be.

“What about you?”

He looks down at his glass. “I don’t know. On the one hand…” He trails off. “I don’t know,” he repeats.

I want to make this easier for him, but I have no idea how to. Other than regaining my memory overnight (a possibility, but a remote one) there’s nothing I can do to resolve this mess. I wonder if he really doesn’t know whether he wants me here or with him, or whether he’s waiting for some gesture from me. The trouble is that at this point that’s all it would be. A gesture.

“I think maybe it’s best if I stay here.” He nods, his eyes still on his glass. “For the time being,” I add, and he nods again.

“What about that supermarket?” he asks after a while, finally looking up. His face is expressionless.

I almost tell him that I don’t need anything, and then I realize that I don’t even know if I have toilet paper.

“Please.”

“Okay.”

I get up and look down at him. I want to thank him, but somehow I don’t think it would go over very well.

 

If there was any doubt left in my mind that Gil and I shared something more than a professional relationship or a casual affair, it’s gone after I check the two full shopping bags he drops off for me. My list was simple, just a few staples to tide me over until he drops off my laptop and I can shop through the internet, but everything, from the orange juice to the toothpaste to the Pop Tarts (which weren’t even on the list) is my favorite brand or flavor.

“I’ll bring you your laptop and clothes tomorrow morning,” he tells me, standing at the entrance.

“Are my sneakers at your place?” I ask.

“Yes; several pairs.”

“Well, can you bring me a couple of right shoes?”

He laughs. “Yeah, I can do that.”

 

After he leaves, I spend some time searching through my house. I recognize some items, but either I’ve moved most of my personal stuff to Gil’s house, or I didn’t bring that much with me from Dallas to begin with. I recognize three or four of the paperbacks, even remember the plots vaguely, but when I check the flyleaves I see that they were published prior to 1997. I had hoped that I might remember things that aren’t personal, but it’s not looking that way. In one of the closets I find a photo album I don’t remember and I pounce on it, but it’s filled with pictures of my family, many of which date back to when I was just a baby. In the last pages I see newer photos: a toddler, who’s a miniature version of my brother-in-law Kevin; my sister Mary in a wedding gown next to a man I don’t recognize, both of them smiling, what looks like cake frosting on his nose and chin. I’m not sure who put it together; probably Karen. Did I ask her for it or did she do it on her own, trying to rebuild a bridge between us?

Even though I search everywhere I can think of, including between the pages of my books, I don’t find any pictures of Rory. If I have photos, it seems strange that I’d take them with me to Gil’s, but leave the album of my family behind; then again, during the time I remember, I don’t think we took a single picture of each other. I wasn’t out and neither was he; it was a secret affair, conducted in his apartment or mine, and on a few weekend trips where neither of us ever brought a camera. It’s almost a miracle we managed to connect in the first place.

It’s after midnight when I go to bed, but I can’t fall asleep. I get up twice to check around the house and make sure that the plywood covering the picture window is securely in place and that the front door is locked, but I can’t shake the feeling that there’s something wrong or that I’m in some kind of danger. Finally I give up, and I spend the hours until dawn alternately watching informercials and dozing on the couch.

 

Gil shows up around ten. He sets the suitcase down in the bedroom and lays the laptop case on the unmade bed, then stands with his hands on his hips looking at me. I’m bleary-eyed and tired and my head hurts.

“Bad night?” he asks.

I shrug. “Sort of.”

He cocks his head, as if waiting for me to elaborate, but what am I going to tell him? That I’m suddenly scared of monsters under the bed?

“Would you like a cup of coffee?” I ask.

“Okay.” He follows me into the kitchen and leans one hip against the counter, watching me take a mug out of the cupboard and pour coffee for him.

“Milk or sugar?”

“No, thanks.”

I push the mug along the counter towards him, and he picks it up, then puts it down again.

“Before I forget again.” He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a wallet and hands it to me.

“Gil, I don’t need—”

“It’s yours,” he interrupts me. “It was in your locker and I carried it around all day yesterday.”

I flip it open curiously, but other than my driver’s license and an ATM card, there’s nothing in it except for a couple of twenty dollar bills.

“I’m not out, am I?”

He raises his eyebrows and I indicate my wallet. “Nothing personal in here. Or in my house. Like I’m expecting somebody to come searching and I don’t want to leave incriminating evidence around.”

He smiles a little. “You’ll find we all do that, more or less. Part of being a CSI. But no, you’re not out.”

“What about you?”

“I don’t make a secret of it. But nobody knows about us, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“And you’re okay with that?” I don’t know why I’m getting angry.

He shrugs. “It’s nobody’s business. And it doesn’t affect our work.” The moment the words are out of his mouth, he grimaces. “Or that’s what I told myself.”

“It has to be against policy though.”

“Yes,” he confirms unapologetically.

“You don’t care about that either?” I ask obnoxiously, trying to get some reaction from him.

He shakes his head. “We’ve had these discussions before, Nick. And just because you don’t remember them doesn’t mean I feel like rehashing them again.”

His irritation pleases me.

“I’m just curious. I mean, I don’t believe in workplace affairs and yet—”

“I seduced you, okay? Took advantage of you when you were drunk. Sexually harassed you. Is that what you want to hear?” he asks hotly.

I gape at him, my own anger momentarily forgotten.

“You did?”

He sighs. “No. It was mutual.”

“Then why would you say that?”

He seems to think about it for a while. Then he sets his coffee cup on the counter.

“I think I’d better go.”

“What? Why?” I protest almost unthinkingly. I don’t want him to leave. I want him to stay here and, as Mrs. McDonnell would say, take it like a man.

“Because you’re in mourning for Rory again. And until you come out of it, you’re going to feel guilty about being attracted to me.”

“What?” I explode.

He ignores my interruption.

“And while you’re feeling guilty, you’re going to keep on trying to punish us both, and I’m not sure how much of that I can handle.”

“I’m not attracted to you,” I protest, my cheeks flaming.

“Yes, Nick, you are,” he says and his arrogance is unbelievable. I try to laugh at him, but he takes a step closer to me. “And right now not kissing you is just about the hardest thing I’ve ever done, so I’m going to leave.”

“Gil?” My voice breaks a little, like it did when I was thirteen. Which is about how old I’m feeling right now.

He pauses at the door, but he doesn’t look at me.

“Will you come back?”

He turns a little. “Yeah,” he sighs. “I’m sure I will. Take care of yourself, Nick.”

After he leaves, I back-hand his cup off the counter and watch it shatter on the tiled floor. I’m getting good at destroying things.

Rip van Winkle fell asleep a loyal subject of King George III and woke up to find his friends dead or gone and himself the citizen of a brand new country. I’m starting to understand how he must have felt.

 

I didn’t have a laptop in Dallas, and I ask myself how much this one set me back. I power it up; a different version of Windows than I remember, but I’m relieved to find I haven’t changed my password. The amount of information available on the internet is mind-boggling, and I try to catch up with the world, following one link to the next, from seven years of NFL results to the mess of the 2000 US elections to gossip on actors in TV series I might have watched, but don’t remember. I’m horrified by September 11, and elated by the fact that the Netherlands and Belgium have recognized same-sex marriage. I wonder whether the events I’m now reading about affected me, and if so, to what degree, or if I just went on with my life, sweating the small stuff and worrying about everyday things like bills, and the next dentist’s appointment.

My stomach growls, and I realize that it’s ten o’clock and that, save for the laptop screen, I’m in total darkness. Except for a couple of toilet breaks, I’ve been sitting here for almost twelve hours. And it’s a good thing Gil loaded up on the Pop Tarts, because I forgot to shop, and I don’t feel like doing it any more tonight.

Before getting up, though, I look up one last thing. I google Rory’s name. I search through every entry, even the ones that are obviously not him, but he’s not here. Out of curiosity I check out my own name, as well, and come across a newsletter from a couple of years ago called Crime Stopper in the LVPD site. And there I am. Jesus, what a load of PR bullshit. I can’t believe I told them that I make toys.

I snap the cover of the laptop shut and stand up, stretching my stiff back.

 

Trying to sleep is absolutely pointless. I lie in bed, the darkness pressing in on me. Turning on the hallway light doesn’t help much. I can’t shake the feeling that somebody is watching me, and it’s starting to really spook me. I end up on the couch again, but I don’t think I can take another night of canned laughter or weirdly tanned hyper people selling me exercise equipment. Maybe that’s why I ended up working graveyard. I’m scared of the dark.

By two a.m. my skin is crawling. I pick up my crutches and perform another perimeter check, making sure all entry points are secure, but it doesn’t make me feel any safer than it did the last three times. I need to get out of here. There must be plenty of places to go to in Vegas, even at this time, and I bet all the hotels have ATM machines. There’s only one problem, beside the fact that I’m not sure if I’m still using my old PIN code; I can’t fit any of my pants over the cast.

I last another half hour before I decide to call Gil. I have no idea what I’m going to say to him, but I just can’t be in this house alone any more.

I try directory services, but they don’t have his name, so I call the CSI Lab. I know it’s his day off, but surely someone will be willing to give me his number. Turns out I’m wrong; I don’t remember my badge number, and without it they won’t even trust me with the time, let alone somebody’s unlisted home phone number.

“Can I speak to Warrick Brown then?” I ask in desperation, and I’m surprised to find myself immediately connected. Brown answers after two rings, sounding annoyed.

“Yeah?”

“Uh, hi, Warrick, this is—”

“Nick! Hi!” he interrupts me, his voice warming immediately.

“Hi,” I repeat stiltedly. “I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“That’s okay. There’s nothing here that can’t wait an hour. Or five.”

Despite his friendly tone, I can’t figure out how to ask for Gil’s number without providing some kind of logical explanation for wanting it at this hour.

“I was wondering, do you know if anybody found my phone?”

“No. It’s still buried in the trash somewhere. We even tried calling it, but apparently you had it set to vibrate.”

“Oh.” Fuck.

“How are you?” he asks. “Everything okay?”

“Yeah. Fine, thanks.”

“Do you think you’ll be coming into work soon?”

“I don’t know.”

I can hear somebody call Warrick’s name in the background and I realize he’s going to have to hang up and I’m going to miss my chance.

“Warrick, can you give me Gil’s number?”

“Yeah, sure,” he says without hesitation. He rattles it off. “Listen, I have to go. Take care, Nick, okay?”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Well, that was easy.

 

Gil picks up on the first ring.

“Nick?”

“Yeah. Hi.”

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. Did I wake you?”

“No.”

I switch the phone to my other hand and wipe my clammy palm against my sweatpants. I clear my throat, looking for something intelligent to say. Actually, I’d settle for something that sounds half-way sane.

“Nick, what’s wrong?” he asks again, his voice kind.

“I… Well, I seem to be afraid of being alone.”

“Huh?”

I clear my throat. “I’m scared.”

“Of what?”

“I don’t know. Like somebody’s going to break in or something. Or more like they’re already inside, watching me. This house isn’t built on an ancient Indian burial ground or something, is it?” I’m only half-joking.

“Not that I know of.”

“It’s stupid—”

“It’s not stupid,” he interrupts me. “Nicky, it didn’t happen in that house.”

“What didn’t happen?”

He doesn’t answer.

“What didn’t happen?” I repeat, my voice higher.

“I’m coming over,” he says suddenly, and he hangs up on me.

I put the phone down and wipe my palms again. I feel like an idiot. But a slightly less scared idiot, now that he’s on his way.

 

His headlights flash through the window as he pulls into the driveway, and I hop over to open the door for him. He’s wearing a wrinkled T-shirt and black sweatpants, and he has just about the worst case of bed hair I’ve ever seen. He also has a pillow crease down one cheek.

“I did wake you.”

He combs his fingers through his hair, which doesn’t really help matters. “I was already awake,” he says, coming in and shutting the door behind him.

“Do you want something? Coffee?”

He shakes his head. “I’d prefer a beer, if you have any.”

“No. The groceries haven’t arrived yet.”

“Really? They’re usually pretty quick.”

“Well, I didn’t exactly place an order yet.”

He looks at me sharply, but doesn’t comment.

“Gil? What didn’t happen?”

“A couple of years ago, you were the target of a stalker. He gained entry to your house, hid in the attic and tried to assume your identity.”

I feel sick, actually sick, like I’m going to throw up. He must see something in my face, because he steps closer to me and cups my neck with both hands, rubbing my jaw lightly with his thumbs.

“It didn’t happen here. That’s why you moved here; you wanted a garden and you didn’t want an attic, or a roof crawl space, and this house fit the bill.”

I clasp his forearms, hanging on to him, and concentrate on the warmth of his palms on my neck. My heart is still hammering, but the nausea is receding.

“It’s safe here,” Gil murmurs. “You’re safe.”

He rests his forehead against mine and I close my eyes.

“You’re safe,” Gil says again, and I draw a deep shuddering breath.

“Jesus,” I whisper. “I don’t think I’ve ever had a panic attack before.” I laugh shakily.

“Are you okay?”

“I guess so. Yeah.”

He kisses me lightly on the corner of my mouth and then backs a step away from me.

“It’s obviously all still there,” he says, tapping my temple once gently. “You’ll get it back.”

“Have I ever stayed alone here?”

“Sure. For over a year.”

I should feel better now that I know that there’s some sort of logical explanation for my fear. But I’m still rattled and I don’t want him to go, which he’s clearly getting ready to do.

“I have bourbon.”

“Okay. That sounds good,” he says agreeably. “Why don’t you sit down and I’ll get the glasses.”

He clearly knows his way around my house, so he must have visited here pretty often.

“Gil, how long have we been together?”

He hands me my drink and sits down on the opposite side of the couch.

“A while.”

“What does that mean?”

“Three years, give or take.”

“Give or take what?”

“On whether you consider the first year as being friends with benefits or as part of us being together.”

“Oh.”

“Yes,” he says, then raises his glass to me in a silent toast, and takes a drink.

The bourbon burns a path down to my stomach and relaxes me. I slouch into the corner of the couch, stretching my feet out sideways, lean my head against the back of the couch and stare at him. Three years, give or take. A little over one thousand days, almost half of the time that I don’t remember.

He reaches over and puts his glass on the coffee table, then lifts both my feet into his lap.

“Does the cast itch?” he asks.

“Not yet,” I say drowsily, closing my eyes as he kneads and flexes my right – good – foot. “If you keep on doing that I’m going to fall asleep on you,” I warn.

“No problem. I don’t have to be anywhere.”

“What do you consider the first year?”

His hands still for a second. “We’ve never discussed it.” He sounds surprised.

“Well?”

“Ask me again when you can answer the same question, Nicky.”

I smile without opening my eyes. “Head over Feet,” I mumble.

“What?”

His tone jerks me awake. “What?”

“You said ‘Head over Feet.’”

“Yeah. Alanis Morissette.” I hum a few bars. “Best friends with benefits,” I sing.

Something flickers in his expression, but I’m too sleepy to figure it out.

“Gil?”

“Yes?”

“Don’t go, okay?” I’m drifting, only his hands, now massaging my ankle and calf, anchoring me.

“No. I won’t.”

It sounds like a promise.

I wake up before the alarm clock, and, eyes still closed, I reach out for Rory. My hand hits against a solid surface that shouldn’t be there, and my whole body jerks in reaction. I hear a muffled yelp. My eyes snap open and I stare uncomprehendingly at the dark, nubby cloth filling my vision; it takes a few moments for me to realize it’s the back of a couch. I’m lying twisted like a pretzel, my neck and legs curled up against the arms of the couch, and I stretch, trying to straighten my body.

This time it’s more of a grunted curse than a yelp, and I’m starting to figure out that whatever it is my feet are resting on, it’s pretty odd-shaped to be furniture. I grin slightly and kick out again, a little more carefully this time.

“Jesus! Will you stop trying to crush my balls.”

It’s not Rory’s voice. The remains of the dream I was warmly wrapped in fall abruptly away, and I shiver in reaction. I swing my feet off of Gil’s lap and onto the floor, the cast on my left leg heavy and unwieldy, and I sit up.

“Sorry,” I mumble.

I feel like shit, a headache pressing against the back of my eyes, my mouth dry and foul-tasting. Without thinking, I press the heels of both hands against my forehead, and I moan in pain as one comes into contact with bandage covering the gash that extends from the middle of my right eyebrow sideways up into my hairline. Waking up with a hangover isn’t fair when all I’ve had to drink the night before is half a shot of bourbon.

I stand up and my knees nearly buckle in a wave of dizziness; I stagger onto my left foot, putting too much weight on it, and my right arm swings backward in an effort to balance myself. My hand glances against the side of Gil’s face, and he grunts again, but then he catches me by the wrist and steadies me.

“Sorry,” I gasp again, once I’m pretty sure I’m not going to fall over.

“That’s okay. I guess everybody needs to kicked and slapped awake at six in the morning at least once in their lifetime,” he says, a grumpy edge to his voice that makes me smile.

I bend down to pick up my crutches, and my vision first blackens and then bursts with stars in another dizzy spell. Worried that I’ll fall flat on my face, I manage to crumble sideways onto the couch.

“Nick? What’s wrong?”

I don’t know, but it’s scaring the hell out of me.

“Nick?”

Gil’s fingers are cool, first against my forehead, and then my cheek.

“You’re burning up,” he says, his voice harsh with worry.

Things are slowly starting to come into focus again, and I see that he’s kneeling on the floor in front of me, his anxious eyes level with mine.

“I think we should go back to the hospital.”

“No,” I protest weakly, even though he’s probably right.

He lays his hand against the side of my neck, his fingers rubbing gently back and forth right underneath my earlobe, soothing me. “Come on, sweetheart. It’s probably nothing, but it’s better if we go in,” he coaxes.

I take a deep breath and push myself upright, and his hand drops away. “In a little bit,” I mumble. I lean over slowly to pick up my crutches and carefully stand up. I feel a little steadier this time around.

“Where are you going?” he asks, climbing to his feet.

“To take a leak.”

He trails behind me, and I wonder if he intends to follow me into the bathroom, but he stops a few feet away.

“Call me if you need anything,” he says.

“Yeah. Thanks.” I close the door hastily, in case he changes his mind and decides I can’t be trusted alone. He might be comfortable enough around me to play nurse, but I’m not.

After I flush and wash my hands, I lean on the counter and stare at myself in the mirror. I'm still not used to my reflection. I must be at least 20 pounds heavier than I was seven years ago, and what the hell was I thinking, cutting my hair this short? I’m looking pretty buff, though, if I do say so myself. I must be hitting the gym a lot more often than I did in Dallas.

I press my fingertips gingerly around the edges of the bandage taped to my forehead. The area feels puffy and sore.

“Everything okay in there?” Gil’s voice drifts through the door.

I sigh. I really wish I could take a shower, but with the cast I would need at least a quarter of an hour’s worth of preparation. Gil is waiting to take me to the hospital and I’ve already been enough of an inconvenience to him. Instead of answering, I open the door and come out.

 

In the emergency room they take a look under the bandage and declare that the wound is infected. Getting injured in the first place probably hurt a lot less than what the doctor is doing to me now. I clench my teeth against the stinging, burning pain, as he fools around with swabs and ointments. I’m about to give up being brave and start bawling like a baby, when he finally rolls his stool backward and reaches for a fresh bandage and tape.

Afterwards, he writes me a prescription for antibiotics and hands it to me. “You’re all set,” he says.

“I can just go home?” I ask in relief.

“Yep.”

I make my way back to the waiting room. Gil is dozing in an armchair. Poor guy, he must be exhausted. I debate whether I should let him rest a little more, when a loud commotion in the hallway wakes him. He blinks dazedly, then focuses on me.

“All done?”

“Yeah.” I point to my new bandage. “They cleaned me up, gave me a prescription and sent me on my way.”

“That’s good,” he smiles. He slowly gets to his feet. “Let’s go.”

I expect him to drive me to a pharmacy and then straight home, but unless I’m completely turned around or he’s taking a circuitous route in order to avoid morning rush hour, we’re headed in the opposite direction. Seeing landmarks that are familiar from TV is pretty exciting at first; then I remember that I live here now. Ten days ago I was probably inured to the sights. Hell, I’ve probably been in most of those hotels on official business.

Gil turns into a quiet street and pulls up in front of a row of townhouses.

“What’s here?”

“Home,” he says, taking the key out of ignition and unfastening his seatbelt.

“Oh?”

He pauses in the act of opening his door and looks at me. “Pop Tarts is not breakfast. If you’re going to take antibiotics, you need to eat.”

He ignores my protests and gets out. In the time it takes him to walk around the front of the car and open my door, I’ve gone from mildly annoyed to royally pissed off. Taking care of me is one thing; bossing me around, another thing entirely.

“Uh, Gil? I’d really rather just go home,” I say tightly, staring fixedly out the front windshield.

“Right after breakfast.”

I fiddle with my seatbelt; I don’t want to get out of the car, but what are my choices? I’m already starting to perspire as the car rapidly heats up now that the a/c is off, and I doubt taxis just come cruising down this street.

“Aren’t you curious to see where you’ve been living?”

Damn him.

“I’m being polite, not curious,” I set the record straight, as I follow him to the front door.

“Of course you are,” his voice drifts back to me.

 

I try not to let my hopes rise, but I’m bitterly disappointed when, once again, I don’t recognize something that should be familiar to me. Gil heads for the kitchen and I wander around the townhouse trying to identify things that are mine rather than his, but I can only work through a process of elimination. Entomology journals, terrarium housing something I don’t want to get too close to, poetry books; definitely not mine. Neither is the stack of LPs, nor the antique looking fan on the window sill. But there’s stuff that’s mixed in with his that could belong to me: a bird whistle, a sleek brushed steel and wood chess set, a baseball mitt wrapped around a ball. I poke my head into what looks like a study, and I see a small wooden locomotive standing on a messy stack of papers on the desk. I pick it up and it’s heavier than I expect, and I hold in my hand as I look around the room.

“You made that for me,” Gil says quietly. “A paperweight.”

I didn’t hear him come in. I put the train down again, but don’t turn around.

“Did I? I don’t remember,” I say thickly.

This is all wrong. I don’t belong here. I belong in Dallas. With Rory.

“I’m going to take a quick shower, and then I’ll fix us some breakfast. The coffee is almost ready if you want some in the meantime.”

I nod. When I’m sure I’m not going to cry I turn around cautiously, but he’s already gone.

 

He turns out to be a pretty good cook.

“Not really,” he says modestly, when I compliment him. “I can do breakfast things, and soups. That’s about it.”

“I can grill a pretty mean steak.”

“I know,” he says. Of course he does. This might feel like a first or second date to me, but it’s really not; he probably knows almost everything about me that there is to know.

He reaches across the table and touches my clenched fist lightly with his fingers.

“It’ll be okay, Nicky. It’s barely been a week yet. Give it some time.”

I move my hand away and pick up my coffee cup. Suddenly, his constant reassurances grate on me. I don’t believe it’s going to be okay and I wish he’d stop saying so.

“I’d like to go home now,” I tell him, and I don’t care that I’m being rude or ungrateful. I’m tired; so very tired.

He doesn’t respond immediately and I sneak a look at him. His lips are pressed together and, even under his beard, I can see a muscle ticking in his jaw.

“Sure,” he says finally and stands up.

 

I’m relieved when he pulls into the driveway of my house. Mrs. McDonnell is sitting in a rocking chair on her porch again, and she waves at us, but doesn’t get up.

Gil doesn’t speak to me. He helps me out of the car and hands me my crutches. He opens his mouth as if to say something, then simply shakes his head and walks back to the driver’s side.

“Gil!” I blurt out, just as he’s about to lower himself into the seat.

He straightens again and looks at me over the roof of the car. He’s wearing sunglasses and I can’t read his expression.

“Do we have pictures?”

“Pictures?”

“Photos. Of us. I didn’t see any.”

He shrugs. “A few. Most are digital, but there’s a framed one in our— in the bedroom.” He pauses. “Do you want me to bring you some?”

“I was just wondering,” I say, not really answering the question. I don’t know if I want pictures of us, not yet, but least we have some, there’s a record of what we shared. Share. Not like Rory and me.

“Thank you for coming over. And for taking me to the hospital. And, you know, for everything,” I finish awkwardly.

“You’re welcome,” he says unsmilingly.

I watch him get into the car and shut the door. He looks back and reverses out of the driveway.

“Wait,” I mumble, “wait,” but he can't hear me, and he probably wouldn’t stop even if he could.

My head still hurts, I’m running a temperature and I haven’t slept very much in 48 hours, otherwise I could have probably stopped myself from crying. Afterwards I lie on my bed, staring up at the ceiling and every now and then my eyes start leaking again, and I’m not quite sure if it’s for Rory, or myself, or Gil, because I’m finding it hard to separate the three of us just now.

“I need you to tell me what happened.”

“Nick…”

“I’ve got to start from somewhere. It’s been three weeks. I can’t work, I can barely go out; all I can fucking do is sit here and wonder.” I take a deep breath. I can’t show how close to the edge I am; she has to believe that I am absolutely in control. “The doctors say it’s okay,” I lie. Actually the doctors haven’t said anything, because I haven’t asked them.

“I don’t know…”

“Karen.”

She sighs. “This is hard for me.”

“For me, too.” I should probably sound more sympathetic, but I’ve just about stopped caring about anybody else’s problems.

The seconds tick by. I can hear her breathing, and I can almost see her nibbling at the cuticle of her left thumb, a habit she’s had since childhood and never managed to break. At least she hasn’t hung up. I fight the impulse to fill the silence.

“You never told me why you left or broke off contact with us. But I can guess,” she says finally.

“Was it about Rory?”

Another pause.

“Well… Yes and no.”

Now that I know she’s decided to tell me, I can be patient and let her move at her own speed.

“I wish I hadn’t pushed you into coming over for Thanksgiving dinner. Rory had passed away in the beginning of October and you were still pretty torn up about it; you just wanted to spend Thanksgiving alone. But I thought it would be better if you were with us. I was worried about you.

“Anyway, we were all sitting around the table, and Christa asked Jeb about Rory. She’d seen an obituary in the paper, but she wasn’t sure of Rory’s last name. Jeb confirmed that it was the Rory we knew, and Christa said that was a shame, and that she couldn’t understand how a big, strong guy like Rory could die of pneumonia. And Jeb got this really nasty tone in his voice, and said that even big, strong fags like Rory die of AIDS, and that it was no more than they deserved.

“I can’t remember what Christa said next, because I was looking at you, and oh, Nick, you were white as a sheet. And you said to Jeb ‘I thought Rory was your friend’ and he just shrugged and said no, and you insisted, you said ‘Come on, Jeb, you knew him since college, you were in the same fraternity, you were roommates’ and Jeb got angry, so angry, and he said something about how that would’ve never happened if he’d known what a pervert Rory was.”

Actually, the expression he used was ‘fucking pervert’ and I can see Jeb yelling at me, his face red with fury. “And mom told him to calm down,” I say slowly.

Karen gasps. “You remember?”

I try to grasp at the threads of memory, but they disappear again. “No,” I say in frustration. “Just the one moment. Go on.”

“Anyway, so Jeb shut up and kind of apologized for swearing, and then you said in this quiet, horrible voice that Rory wasn’t a pervert, he was only gay, and there was nothing wrong with that. And then Dad got involved and he said how homosexuality was against the laws of nature and God, and how AIDS was a punishment from God.”

“It wouldn’t have been the first time.”

“No. No, but you didn’t let it go this time, like you did all the others. You turned to him and you asked him what he’d do if he found out that one of his own children was homosexual, and he laughed and said there was no chance of that, and you insisted, and he said that he’d disown us. And you said, ‘But you wouldn’t wish us dead,’ and he said ‘Maybe I would.’”

“What?”

“You just stared at him for a while, your mouth hanging open. Then you turned to Mom, and asked her what about her, what would she do, and she just shook her head and said that it was a difficult question, and she didn’t know, and that she was happy she would never have to make the choice that other poor women had to make.”

“What did the rest of you do?”

There’s another long pause. “Nothing,” she says finally in a soft voice. “We did nothing. We said nothing. You looked at all of us, you looked at me, like you were expecting me to jump in, like this was the usual argument about Amnesty International or about whether Clinton was ruining the country, but I couldn’t, Nick, because I was so scared for you, and that you might die, too, and you just shook your head and didn’t say anything more.”

My heart feels like it’s going to explode, and for a while neither of us speak.

“And that was that?” I can see that it would have been the last straw as far as my family was concerned, but Karen? How could I blame her for not standing up for me? Hell, I hadn’t stood up for myself.

“Not quite,” she says in a small voice, and I know we’re now getting to the reason that Karen and I argued, and suddenly I don’t want to hear it, I don’t want whatever it is to come between us again.

“Karen, that’s okay. You don’t have to say anything more,” I say hastily, but she’s in full confessional mode, the words pouring out, and, short of hanging up on her, there’s nothing I can do to stop her.

“After dinner, we sat on the porch, just the two of us; I don’t think you really wanted me there, but I was trying to figure out a way to apologize for not taking your side earlier. I wish I could remember what it was I said exactly, because it must have come out completely wrong, and you said something about this being who you are, and that you weren’t sorry you met Rory, that he was the love of your life, and I said that it was your choice to put yourself at risk, but you couldn’t force the rest of us to like it, and that dating Rory had nothing to do with love, it was just rebelling against Dad. I don’t remember everything we said to each other, but in the end I told you that I couldn’t do it anymore, that I hated the fact that you’re gay and that I couldn’t pretend to be okay with it anymore, and that I hated you, because you were selfish and were breaking up our family.”

Her voice is thick with tears and she pauses.

“And the thing of it is…” she continues abruptly, “the thing of it is that instead of yelling at me or something, you tried to tell me that I didn’t really feel that way about you, that I was just scared, you even started crying, told me that you’re my brother. A-and I t-told you that I wished you weren’t.”

“Oh, Karen,” I say heavily, too stunned to say anything more. It feels like it all happened to someone else, not me, but it finally makes sense, why I cut off all contact with my family. Whether unknowingly, as in the case of my parents and other siblings, or knowingly, as in the case of Karen, they had rejected me, and, after Rory, I just couldn't keep on forgiving them for that.

“I’m sorry, Nick. I’m so, so sorry!”

“That’s okay,” I say mechanically, my head too full of my own thoughts to try and console her. “Thank you for telling me. Listen, I need to go now.”

“Nick?”

“Yeah?”

“Please call me. Please. I can see why you might not want to, but please.”

“I need to go,” I say again. “Bye.”

I put the phone down and slide down off the couch onto the floor, resting my head on the seat and looking up at the ceiling. My broken leg feels better when it’s stretched out, but I’ve always liked sitting on the floor for some reason. Back in college it’s how I used to study.

For the past ten days or so I’ve been alternating between grief and anger; sometimes I feel both at the same time, along with large doses of self-pity. I keep on telling myself that I have to start getting used to my new circumstances, that I need to figure out what I’m going to do in case I don’t get my memory back, but I can’t seem to follow through with my intentions. Instead of assessing what gaps I need to cover in order to resume active duty as a CSI-3, I feel sorry for myself that all my previous efforts have been wasted, and pissed off that years of training and experience have gone down the drain. Instead of figuring how to patch things up with Gil – if I was in love with him once, surely it wouldn’t be too difficult to fall in love with him again? – I can only think about Rory and how much I miss him and how I wish we could be together again. It’s all pointless and self-defeating, and I know it, but I just can’t seem to help how I feel.

I’m angry now, too. Why the hell didn’t I fight them? Why did I just skulk away, as if being gay is wrong, as if my relationships didn’t count as much as those of Jeb and of my sisters? And what pisses me off even more is that my parents have absolutely no idea why I left and they actually blame me.

Well, that’s something that can be corrected right away. It’s not like outing myself could make my relationship with my family any worse.

I hoist myself up a little and reach for my laptop. Since that first day I haven’t used it at all; just another little bit of my hiding from the world and the fact that it went on without me. I settle back on the floor, prop the laptop on my thighs and lift the top, listening the little pops and hisses as it powers up, thinking of what I’m going to write.

Dear Mom and Cisco, I’m gay and if you don’t like it you can go screw yourselves is simple and straightforward. I type it, then back up, deleting one letter at a time. I don't want them to think I'm being defensive about who I am. Dear Mom and Cisco, I’m gay, love, Nick. I look at it for a few moments, then highlight ‘love’ and delete it.

Why am I even doing this, though? What’s the point? What am I hoping for, that they’ll change their mind, that my dad won’t wish me dead, or that my mom will all of a sudden find that it’s not such a difficult choice to love her homo son? The truth of the matter is telling them I’m gay will serve absolutely no constructive purpose. It won’t even make me feel better. Maybe I can rebuild my relationship with Karen at some point, because I can see where we were both under extreme stress and said things we didn’t mean, but the rest of them? Fuck’em. I delete the e-mail, and when the little warning comes up asking me if I’m sure I want to continue, I click on yes without any hesitation.

My inbox has two unread messages. One is from somebody called Greg Sanders, dating back to the day before my accident, with the title Nana Olaf strikes again? I open it.

Had this weird dream about a Mutant Garbage Monster terrorizing Las Vegas. He threw a McDonald’s burger wrapper at you and you went down. Wimp.

I have no idea who Greg or Nana Olaf are, but the Mutant Garbage Monster is a bit too much of a spooky coincidence. Greg hasn’t written again; he either doesn’t know what happened to me, or he’s also a CSI and knows that I’ve lost my memory. Nobody from work has called me or written me; I guess they’re all still waiting to hear from me if it would be okay.

The second mail is Gil and it was sent a day after he took me to the hospital, almost two weeks ago. I haven’t seen him or spoken to him much since that morning. We’ve called each other three or four times and he stopped by once; the conversations were always awkward and I’m pretty sure he was as relieved as I was when they were over.

His message is very brief, just one sentence. This is all of them. I open the zip file curiously. It contains 23 photos. I stare at the file names, but except for one, Halloween, all the others are just series of numbers, like they were simply downloaded from a camera but not processed further. I click on Halloween first. It’s a photo of the townhouse; the door and windows look as if they’re covered with shaving foam. I guess we weren’t there to open up for trick-or-treaters, but if there’s a further personal significance as to why he included it, it’s lost on me.

The other photos are of us. In about half of them we’re together, most of them with either one or the other holding the camera at arm’s length; in the rest it’s either him or me, and there are sometimes other people with us. None of the pictures are particularly good, some are out of focus, or under- or over-exposed, and in most we look pretty goofy. They’re the kind of photos that one keeps because they have personal meaning, and that bore one’s friends to tears if shared. I stare at them curiously, trying to figure out where we are or what we’re doing.

I recognize Warrick in one of them, and the woman standing between him and me is probably either Catherine or Sara, and there’s an older guy as well, who looks like a cop. We’re all squinting against the sun and grinning and the older guy is holding up a silver cup, probably some kind of departmental tournament. Somebody else took the next photo, because Gil is in it as well, down on one knee in front of us, the woman resting both hands on his shoulders. He doesn’t have a beard here and his face looks sunburned. He’s smiling straight at the camera, but I seem to be looking down at him. Were we already together then, or was it just a coincidence?

I click open the last photo.

“Jesus, Nick. Will you stop?”

“I just want a memento. No one else is going to see this. Why are you being so shy?”

“I’m not being shy. I just don’t want the fact that I sat on a sea urchin recorded for posterity.”

“But it’s such a cute ‘posterity.’”

This time, I don’t have to reach for the memories; they slam forcefully into place with dizzying speed.

 

“I remembered something.”

“Did you?” He sounds preoccupied. Probably not the best idea, calling him at work.

“Our vacation in Cancun.”

He lowers his voice. “Please tell me that it was either just completely random or that it was the pictures of us at Chichen Itza that reminded you.”

“Nope. It was your ‘posterity.’”

He laughs, a choked little sound. “Hold on a minute.” The background noises grow more distant, then I hear a car door slam shut and it’s completely quiet. “When did you remember?”

“Tonight. I opened the pictures.”

“I sent them to you two weeks ago.”

“I didn’t realize. I hadn’t opened my e-mail.”

“Why not?”

I shrug, even though he can’t see me. “I don’t know. I just didn’t.”

“I thought… When you didn’t mention them, I thought you might be angry at me for sending them.”

“No. I mean, I asked for them.”

“Not exactly. You asked if we had any, but you didn’t say you wanted them. And the doctors—”

“Fuck the doctors,” I say deliberately. “I remembered more stuff today, just by doing what they told me not to do, than in the past three weeks. It’s not going to come back on its own; I need to force it.”

“Nick—”

“I mean it. It was a mistake just hiding away, waiting for something to happen.”

“What else?”

“Huh?”

“You said you ‘more stuff.’ Was there something else you remembered?”

“Just something Jeb said to me.”

I can almost hear him thinking, working things out.

“You talked to Karen?” he asks finally.

“Yeah.”

He doesn’t ask me what about, and once again I have to remind myself that Gil knows me; maybe I’ve even told him about that last Thanksgiving dinner with my family.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.” The tenderness in his voice moves me almost to tears, and I dig my nails into the palm of my hand.

“Nick, do you remember why we were in Cancun?”

“Yeah,” I say a third time. It was a honeymoon of sorts. We didn’t get married, but we’d moved in together, and we thought we should celebrate.

“I still feel the same about you,” he says. “More.”

 

It took me three hours after remembering to gather the courage to call him. I sat on the floor as the room grew darker around me, running the whole vacation over and over in my mind, thinking of Gil, and of Rory, as well.

I remembered the flight to Cancun, and seeing the sparkling Caribbean from our hotel balcony; I remembered rubbing suntan lotion into Gil’s shoulders, and drinking way too much tequila and falling off a bar stool laughing at a joke that hadn’t been that funny. I remembered slow dancing with him in a small club someone had recommended to us, and making love to him one afternoon with the warm sun streaming through our hotel window.

I compared being in Cancun with Gil with the times I remembered with Rory. I’d loved Rory, but we really hadn’t known each other very well. Maybe later, but during the period I recalled, we’d never been quite sure of one other. There’d been frequent misunderstandings and arguments. We’d been jealous and insecure, expecting both too much and too little. I’d probably gone through that phase with Gil, as well, but, if so, in Cancun we’d been past it.

One afternoon, towards the end of our vacation, he’d reached over and laced his fingers with mine. It hadn’t been a conscious gesture, he’d been reading a book and never looked up, and I remembered how absolutely and deeply happy I’d felt at that moment.

 

The cautious way he makes his declaration just about breaks my heart.

How did I not realize up until three hours ago how difficult all this has to be for him? I knew he must love me, but as long as he didn’t say it in so many words, as long as I couldn’t remember loving him back, it’s almost like I discounted it, like it wasn’t serious, or even real.

“I think I do too, Gil” I say thickly.

“Nicky,” he exhales, then he mutters a curse. “They’re calling me.”

I can hear the background noise again, so he’s obviously opened the car door. Fuck. I wanted to say more to him, but the moment is lost.

“Listen,” he says urgently. “Can I come over? After work?”

“Yes. Please.”

“We’re at a scene, and it looks like we might have to pull a double,” he warns me.

“It’s okay, Gil. Whenever. I’ll be here.”

“Okay, good,” he says more formally, and I realize he must be within earshot of someone. Then he hangs up.

I get up stiffly and turn on the light.

I’ve set the screensaver on the laptop to rotate through the photos Gil sent me, and his ‘posterity’ flashes onscreen, clenched in embarrassment, one cheek reddish brown from the betadine solution, the other milky white against the tan of his waist and legs.

I start laughing. I was so right to insist on that picture, even though it pissed him off no end when I took it.

It’s four p.m. by the time Gil shows up.

Despite his warning that he might end up working a double shift, I started keeping watch at ten, looking out every time I heard a car coming down the street. Around noon I figured I’d make myself a sandwich and sit on the porch, but the heat drove me back inside. I don’t know how Mrs. McDonnell does it. The rest of the afternoon I spent reading a study manual for the CSI-3 test that I found on one of my shelves. The fact that a lot of the stuff in it isn’t familiar worries me.

Still, when Gil’s car finally pulls up in front of the driveway, my pulse goes into overdrive. So far I’ve been imagining a certain way that things will happen, but now I’m not so sure I want it. But I’m not so sure I don’t want it.

I get up and stand by the side of the window, so that I can watch him unobserved. He gets out of the car and looks towards the house, pushing his hands against the small of his back and stretching his shoulders back. He doesn’t seem in any hurry, and I wonder if he’s as nervous as I am or simply tired. Finally he starts to walk slowly up the path. He pauses at the halfway point and looks towards Mrs. McDonnell’s house, then nods and says something. Of all the fucking times for her to be out on her porch. Then again, when isn’t she there?

I watch resignedly as he settles in for a long conversation. Jesus, now he’s actually taking a couple of steps towards her house; next thing I know, he’ll be drinking lemonade with her on her porch. I hurry to the door and swing it open.

“Gil!” I whisper.

He hears me and glances my way; his initial heart-melting smile quickly transforms to a frown.

“That’s very interesting, but I do need to go inside now,” he says almost rudely, interrupting Mrs. McD in the middle of a sentence.

“Oh! Well, of course, dear,” I hear her say huffily.

I back away from to door to give him room and he steps inside.

“What’s wrong?”

“Wrong? Nothing. Why?”

“You look angry.”

“I… No, I’m not. I was just…” I gesture vaguely in the direction of Mrs. McDonnell’s house. “I’ve been waiting for you for hours and she—”

My mouth finally connects to my brain and I shut up. Too late though, because there’s an amused smile spreading across his face.

“You’ve been waiting for me?” he asks softly.

I was mistaken. It’s not amusement, it’s pleasure. Is that how little it takes to make him happy? Just knowing that I was looking forward to his being here?

“Yeah.”

“Nicky.” It’s almost a sigh, and I’m waiting for him to make the first move, to give me an indication of where we go from here, because I seem to be paralyzed, but he just stands there, about a foot away from me, his hands in his pockets.

“I still don’t remember how we met,” I tell him. Actually there are so many things I still don’t remember: how we moved from being co-workers to friends with benefits, who made the first move, who mentioned the word love first and when, whether he invited me to live with him or whether I invited myself. All I know is bits and pieces of six days spent in Cancun, and that I was in love with him then. Now he’s standing in front of me, and without knowing our common history, I think that what I feel right now could just as well be infatuation as real love.

“I interviewed you for a CSI-2 position in graveyard.”

“You hired me?”

He shakes his head. “No, Brass did that. He was the shift supervisor.”

“Was it love at first sight?” I say in a facetious tone, pretending to make a joke so that he can’t tell what I’m expecting to hear.

“I don’t think so. I’m pretty sure Brass is only attracted to women.”

I grin.

“No,” he says. “Not at all.”

When Gil first told me that we were together, all I knew about him was how quiet and deliberate he was. He seemed like somebody, who thought everything out before he acted. I could see why I might have been attracted to him, both physically and emotionally, but I concluded that our relationship was something lukewarm that we just drifted into. And then I remembered Cancun, and a completely different Gil: impulsive, humorous, sentimental, the kind of guy it seemed entirely possible might actively pursue me. Or I him.

“Not even a bit? Why not?”

“Can we have this conversation sitting down?”

“Oh, sure. Sorry. Would you like anything to eat? I can make you a sandwich if you’re hungry.”

“No, I’m good.” He collapses on the couch. “I don’t know,” he says, picking up the previous discussion thread. “We just didn’t click. I didn’t think you were right for the job and you knew it.” He smiles. “You’ve never let me live it down.”

“So how did it happen?”

He leans forward, elbows on his knees, staring at some point in the middle distance, as if the answer is there. “I don’t know,” he says again slowly. “You were so determined to prove to me that you could do a good job. I don’t even know why it was that important to you; I wasn’t the one writing your evaluations. I guess you kind of got under my skin.”

“That doesn’t sound very romantic.”

He laughs.

“No, I don’t think anybody’s ever accused me of that yet.”

“Who made the first move?”

He looks at me.

“Me?”

“You gave me flowers.”

“I gave you flowers?”

“Yes. Sent them to me at home.”

“No, I didn’t.”

He grins. “Yeah, you did.”

I dig fruitlessly into my memory. “That doesn’t sound like me,” I say suspiciously.

He shrugs. “What can I say? I’m pretty irresistible when I want to be.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

He turns fully towards me, one arm along the back of the couch so that I can feel its heat on my shoulders, his eyes dancing. “Why? Don’t you think I’m irresistible?”

“No,” I say hastily, but my voice sounds high and uncertain. I clear my throat. “No,” I repeat more firmly, then I feel his fingers brush against my bare arm, right where the short sleeve of my T-shirt ends, and I break out in goose bumps.

“I love how you do that,” he whispers. He leans closer. “You still don’t remember a hell of a lot about us, do you?”

I don’t trust my voice, so I just shake my head, my eyes glued to his.

“Do you remember what it feels like when we kiss?”

My heart is beating so heavily, I think it’s going to explode. “We kissed in Cancun. I remember that.”

I can’t believe that breathy little voice is me.

“Can I kiss you now?”

Instead of answering, I lean a little towards him. He doesn’t close the distance between us immediately. Instead he seems to study every inch of my face, my eyes, my mouth. He touches the scar on my forehead so lightly that I barely feel his fingers, and I shiver again.

“Nicky,” he says hoarsely, and then he kisses me. Given his asking me for permission and his initial hesitation, I’m expecting a first time kiss, the kind that starts out slow as you try to figure out what the guy you’re kissing likes and how you’re going to show him what you like. It’s nothing like that, because it’s not the first time, not for him. It’s hard and wet and hungry, and he groans as he wraps his arms around me and tries to pull me closer.

I stiffen slightly, not rejecting him, but not really comfortable with the sudden heat, either. At first he doesn’t seem to notice, then he pulls back a little. His irises are so dilated his eyes look black.

“What’s wrong?” he murmurs. “Too much?”

I shrug.

He murmurs something that I don’t quite catch and he slowly sits back. I glance down and I see an erection tenting his pants, but it seems to embarrass me more than him.

“This is strange,” he says. “We’re completely out of sync. It’s never been that way between us before.” He pauses and gives a small, humorless smile. “Even when there wasn’t an ‘us’ I understood you better than I do now.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?” He stands up abruptly. “I’m generally a patient man, Nick. I guess I’ll just have to learn to be patient where you’re concerned, as well.”

“Let me take some responsibility for this,” I say, suddenly irritated at his efforts to let me off the hook. “I might have lost my memory, but I’m still an adult.”

“Yeah? So what would an adult do in a situation like this?” he sneers.

I don’t like looking up at him, so I get up as well. With the cast on one leg it’s not a move I’ve mastered well, but the effort distracts me from my growing anger. When I’m finally upright, he takes a step closer, so that our faces are about three inches apart, and he’s glaring at me, and a faint memory stirs.

“Do you do this often?”

“Do what?”

“Get in my face?”

His features slacken in surprise and he backs off. “No.” He takes a deep breath. “Not often.”

I remember what he said about us having had an argument before he sent me on the trash run. “Did— do we argue a lot?”

“What do you think?”

He’s not being flippant; he sounds genuinely curious, as if my opinion is some kind of test, only I don’t know if he’s the one being tested or me.

“Not a lot,” I say slowly. “But when we do, it’s a real doozy.”

“That’s about the size of it,” he says, the corners of his mouth tugging upward.

“What did we argue about? Before my accident?”

He shakes his head. “It was stupid.”

“So tell me.”

He pushes his hands into his pockets. “We don’t exactly see eye to eye about keeping things secret,” he says carefully.

I’m pretty sure I’m the one responsible for the secrecy. “But if it’s out in the open, then one of us would have to change jobs, wouldn’t we?” I don’t even want to mention the fact that I’d need to come out to people that know me in a certain way. From what I can gather from a few things Gil said, I continued the pretense of being a lady’s man in Vegas.

“Yes.”

“That doesn’t sound so stupid,” I say slowly. “That sounds pretty big.”

“What’s stupid is that we’re both willing to do something else, and yet we won’t let the other be the one to quit.”

“Something else? Like what?”

“I can teach and do research,” he responds, and I see immediately why I haven’t agreed to that. He sounds miserable just saying it.

“And me?”

“Go back to being a cop.”

I only just stop myself from gaping at him. There’s no way in hell I’d want to go back to that. I love the science, and I love solving puzzles. I might not always good at it, but there’s nothing I’d rather do. At least there wasn’t. Go back on the beat? Jesus, I must be head over heels.

“Why does it have to be so drastic? Why can’t one of us just change shifts?”

“We tried that. You missed your chance to ask for a transfer when you got promoted to CSI-3, and you don’t have enough seniority now; I do, but it’s a political thing.”

“A political thing?”

“The less my shift overlaps with that of the Sheriff, the better everybody feels.”

“Oh.”

“Let’s not go over this right now. I need to go.”

He sounds tired; he’s worked a double shift and he probably needs to be back at work in less than six hours.

“Are you OK to drive home?”

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

I watch him walk to door, his shoulders slumped.

“Gil. Stay here,” I say impulsively.

The entrance is dark, so I can’t make out his expression when he turns to look at me.

“I can’t,” he says, his voice strained.

I hop over to him and put my hands on his shoulders, kneading the tight muscles there. “Sure you can. You’re dead on your feet. Stay here.”

He leans into my hands, his eyes closing. “I need a shower,” he mumbles.

“I’ve got one here. Water and everything.”

He suddenly jerks himself away. “No. Don’t you get it?”

Time to take responsibility. I might not remember, but at some point I agreed to live with this man; I don’t know if we promised each other anything, but he’s certainly stood by me. It’s high time I did the same for him.

“I get it, Gil,” I say quietly, putting my hands on his shoulders again, tugging him towards me. “I do get it.”

He allows me to draw him towards me, and drops his forehead against my shoulder. I press my cheek against his, the softness of his beard tickling me a little and close my eyes.

“I love you,” he says. “I wish you remembered that.”

“I know. I don’t need to remember. I know.”

I feel his lips on my neck and I turn my head blindly, looking for his mouth with mine. This time he lets me set the pace. I take my time, kissing softly, exploring not only his lips, but his cheeks, his ears, a sensitive spot on his neck; his breath hitches and he tightens his arms around me, but still he only mirrors what I’m doing.

When we separate, his face is flushed, his eyes glittering feverishly. “I’d better go take that shower,” he says.

“Do you know where the towels are?”

“Yeah.”

About fifteen minutes later he emerges, a towel wrapped around his waist, rubbing at his curly hair with another one. “I always forget that you don’t have a hair dryer,” he grouses.

I grin; my hair’s about half an inch longer than when I left hospital, but it’s still shorter that his.

“Well… don’t let me sleep past ten thirty,” he says, looking at me a little uncertainly.

“Okay.”

 

Later I realize I’ve been staring at the same page on the CSI manual for half an hour, but I haven’t actually read a single sentence. I get up from the couch and go to the bedroom. Gil’s left the door slightly open, and I push it further, until the light from the hallway falls on him. He’s lying on his back on the left side of the bed, and suddenly it starts to make sense why I feel more comfortable sleeping on the right side, even though it means I have to walk around the bed to go take a leak at night and the alarm clock is plugged in on the left side.

I tiptoe into the bedroom and sit on the bed.

“Nick?” he says drowsily. “Is it ten thirty already?”

“No. It’s okay. You’ve got a couple of hours still. Sorry I woke you.”

I start to get up, but he reaches for me, his warm hand wrapping around my wrist.

“What?” he asks softly.

“Nothing. I just…” My voice peters out.

“Why you don’t you lie here for a while? Let me hold you.”

With Rory I was always the one that did the holding, but I don’t resist as Gil pulls me into a lying position and spoons against my back. I can feel his warm breath on my nape, and he leans more heavily against me as he slowly relaxes back into sleep.

At first I lie with my eyes wide open, trying to process everything I’m feeling and thinking, but with the heat of his body against mine it’s hard to concentrate, and I feel myself starting to drift.

“Who knew you’re a cuddler?”

“I’m not. I’m just trying to keep you happy.”

“I’d be happier if it weren’t so hot.”

“I’m practicing for winter. Now shut up and let me get some sleep.”

The memory’s so vivid that I almost say ‘okay’ out loud. His arm is draped over me, his hand a loose fist against my breastbone. I lace my fingers through his and smile. My last thought is that I need to stay awake, because he probably didn’t set the alarm clock.

I dream.

I dream about waking up with my memory intact, so that I can remember how Rory and I said goodbye, and how I moved on afterwards and found a home in Las Vegas with Gil. Bits and pieces are there, but without continuity or context they don’t add up to much.

 

Eight weeks after the accident I returned to work. I met the team but no new memories were shaken loose. To a degree, I felt comfortable with them, but I didn’t know how much I’d told them about myself and I couldn’t get used to the fact that they knew more about my life in Vegas that I did.

In any case, I didn’t work graveyard very long. About a month after I started, Gil called me to his office. By this time I’d figured out that nearly everybody called him Grissom, so at work I called him that too. I knew what he was going to say, and I spared him having to do so.

“I’m not working out.”

He cleared his throat. “No. You either have to take a couple of steps back and re-pass the CSI-2 certification, or…” He didn’t finish the sentence.

“A couple of steps back is close to five years, and that’s assuming I pass,” I said slowly.

“Nicky—”

“I won’t do it, Gil. I might not remember all those years, but I don’t want to start over again.”

He leant forward and looked at me pleadingly.

“Nick, I can’t cover for you.”

“I know that. I’m not asking you to.” I looked behind me to make sure that the door of his office was closed, then reached out and covered his hand, rubbing his white knuckles with my thumb. “I’ve already spoken to the Undersheriff; I can take the test to become a detective. So I still get to figure out whodunit, without all the technical knowledge I just don’t have any more.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I’m positive. And if I’m really lucky, I’ll get days instead of graveyard again.”

I lied to him at the time. I wasn’t positive. But I passed the test and even though I ended up working swing, I found that I enjoy being a detective in the Homicide squad.

 

A couple of months after I made detective, Gil and I “officially” moved in together. That’s to say, he sold his townhouse and changed his address to mine on all the official records. We wavered between the two places for a while, but he told me that the first time around I’d missed my garden (or, more likely, my barbeque) and that it was all the same to him. So we didn’t exactly announce it to the world, but we weren’t hiding, either. I suspect I would have been more bothered by peoples’ reactions if I’d actually remembered the lies I probably told them throughout the years; as it was, I felt a sort of free-floating guilt for a while. Gil didn’t really give a shit one way or another. He was happy the ethical conflict had been resolved and that we were together and as far as he was concerned, everybody else could go jump in Lake Mead.

 

We didn’t fall into sync immediately. He made certain assumptions about me that were no longer true, since I was missing the intervening years and the experiences that had turned me into who I was before the accident.

Then again, I made assumptions about me too, one of them being that I didn’t bottom.

“Oh, but you do,” he said the first time I turned him down. “Not often, but you do.” Then he went back to what he’d been doing.

I looked down at him with about as much suspicion as a man being given a mind-bending blowjob can muster. After all, I’d found out that he’d lied about me sending him flowers, at least by omission. We’d been testing to see if a certain florist would simply leave the flowers outside the door if nobody was at home, something which she’d flatly denied having done and which, if true, ruined our whole timeline on a case. I guess I could have had the flowers delivered to Catherine or Sara, but they hadn’t been working the case with us. (And it had turned out that the florist did simply leave the flowers if there was nobody at home.)

“I don’t,” I gasped, as his fingers brushed against my prostate, but by that point I don’t think he was paying much attention.

Finally, I figured I was being selfish. I wasn’t going to enjoy it, but, okay, fine, it really wasn’t that much for Gil to ask for. I enjoyed it - not the first few minutes, but afterwards – so much so, that I had to wonder why I hadn’t bottomed every chance I could get.

 

I dream of remembering the first time I kissed Gil.

“Why is it so important to you?” he asked me. “What does it matter?”

“I want us to share the same past,” I told him.

“In the past I sent you to have an accident because of a stupid argument. A stalker fell out of your ceiling. I might have been killed if you hadn’t warned Catherine. Let the past rest, Nick. What’s important is today. Tomorrow.”

He was propped up on one elbow, looking down at me, and I traced his lips.

“It’s easy for you to say. You remember.”

“Exactly. So I know what I’m talking about.” He caught my hand and kissed my fingertips. “The past only exists to lead us where we are today. And we’re here. Together.”

“It’s not that simple.”

He let go of my hand and sat up, wrapping his arms loosely around his knees.

“I know,” he agreed quietly. “Nick, if you don’t feel the same way about me any more, I understand.”

I felt something tight and heavy in my chest.

“It’s not that,” I said, even though, in part, it was. It wasn’t so much my feelings for Gil that I questioned, as my feelings for Rory. Had I thought of him so vividly before, when I’d had my chance to say goodbye to him?

“I need to go back to Dallas.”

He looked at me, his eyes dark, his mouth drawing down at the corners.

“Only for a visit. There are some things I need to do.”

I sat up as well, wrapping myself around him from behind, so that he could lean against me if he wanted to. It took a little time, but eventually he relaxed into my arms and leaned his head back against my shoulder.

 

And so, here I am.

Seeing the changes around me, I’m even more conscious of how time has telescoped for me. I feel like I’ve been away for less than a year, but it’s actually been eight now. I drive along my old patrol route, and see signs of urban renewal in areas, where gangs used to rule; on the other hand, my favorite drinking spot no longer exists.

I debated letting my family know that I’m here, but I’ve decided not to. At least, not right now. Instead I park my rental outside of Rory’s old apartment and get out to check the doorbells. I don’t hold much hope that I’ll see a name I recognize; Rory himself only knew his upstairs neighbor, a girl attending nursing college.

“Can I help you?” I hear a hesitant voice behind me, and I turn around to see a slight woman with short brown hair. I recognize Sue immediately, although her hair was long and blond back then.

She frowns at me. “Nick?” she asks in disbelief, then laughs. “My goodness! Look at how you’ve grown!”

“Hey, none of that now,” I say in a mock-stern voice. “This is all solid muscle.”

“Uh huh,” she snorts. “Well, I never expected to see you in Dallas again! What made the mountain come to Mohamed?”

“You knew I’d left permanently?”

She’s rifling through her purse and muttering, and she doesn’t hear me. Finally she holds up her keys triumphantly.

“You should always have your house key ready, even in broad daylight.”

“Yes, Mr. Policeman. You’re coming in, aren’t you?”

“Thanks.” I follow her up the stairs. “I didn’t really expect to find anybody. It’s been so long.”

She pauses and looks back at me. “What do you mean? You kinda dropped off the face of the earth this past year, not that I should be throwing any stones myself, but why would you think I’ve moved?”

I’m puzzled. I’d always liked Sue, but I didn’t really know her that well. Why would I have kept in touch with her?

“Sorry,” I say. “Been kinda busy.”

“Ha! Is that what they call it now?”

“Depends on what you mean by it.”

By now we’ve reached the landing and she’s unlocking her door.

“Lurve,” she says. “Come on in. Don’t mind the mess, I sure don’t.”

I don’t respond and she looks up at me sharply.

“Nick? Y’all didn’t break up, did you? I was so happy for you when you told me you moved in with Gil.”

“No. It’s not that.”

She dumps her handbag on the floor and kicks her shoes off. “Do you want a beer?”

“Sounds great, thanks.”

She pads into the kitchen and comes out with a couple of Lone Stars.

“Ugh, I should’ve remembered you like that stuff.”

“Now, now, Nick. It’s the national beer of Texas.”

“And that says it all.” We clink bottles and I take a sip. My taste buds sure haven’t missed the flavor.

“So, what’ve you been up to?”

“Not much. Mostly losing my memory.”

She gives a half-smile, as if she’s waiting for the punch line to decide if she’s going to laugh or not, and when I say nothing more, her smile fades.

“You’re shitting me.”

“I wish I was.”

“Ummm. Wow. I don’t really know what to say here. I mean… are you okay now?”

“Yeah. But I still don’t remember much of anything.”

“You remember me,” she says, preening a little.

“You’re unforgettable,” I respond and she blows me a raspberry. “I had an accident about a year ago. When I woke up, I thought I was back here and that it was October of 1997, probably the 13th or 14th. Except for a few memories here and there that don’t even add up to 10 days, most of that time is still lost to me.”

I’ve been looking down at my beer, but I flick a glance at her and stop short at the expression in her face. “What?”

“October 14?” she asks.

“Yeah.”

“That’s the day Rory broke up with you. I remember, ‘cause it was my mom’s birthday, and I’d invited her over for dinner and the two of you were yelling at each other downstairs. ”

I stare at her mutely, trying to process what she just said, but it doesn’t make any sense. He didn’t break up with me.

“No,” I say finally.

“Oh, Nick, are you sure you want to hear all this? I mean—”

Suddenly she looks extremely worried.

“I know he died. Gil told me.”

“Oh, wow, what a relief,” she says, then slaps both her hands against her mouth. “I didn’t mean it that way,” she mumbles from behind them, making me smile.

“Don’t worry about it, I know you didn’t. And yes, I do want to hear it. It’s driving me crazy, not knowing. I didn’t even know we’d kept in touch.”

“Yeah, well, if you only remember until that day, I’m not surprised. We didn’t actually become friends until a couple of months before Rory passed away.”

“So what happened? Him and me, we obviously made up again. Gil told me I was with him to the end.” I never asked Gil about Rory after that first night in the hospital, but I clearly remember his words. It’s all I had to go by.

“Well, you stood by him when nobody else did. I think that’s what he must have meant. I used to feel so sorry for you.”

“Sorry for me?”

“Yeah. You were so in love with him. And Rory… well, Rory was a slut. He’d been scared celibate for a while, and then you came along, and then… well, who knows? He said he’d been faithful to you in the beginning, and you believed him.”

“You didn’t?” I ask, although it’s more than obvious she didn’t.

She shrugs. “I don’t know. I guess he tried to do the right thing eventually and told you that he didn’t want a relationship. Only it wasn’t even a month later that he became very ill for the first time. And you came back. And you kept on coming back, taking care of him, shopping for him, even staying over the nights he was worse. Poor little thing, you were skin and bones, just ragged with running around and with worry. That’s how we became friends. You banged on my door one night, because he was having trouble breathing. God, I was scared stiff, I had no idea what to do.”

“So what happened?”

“Oh, I called 911.” Her face twists a little. “One of the paramedics didn’t even want to get near him, let alone help him.”

I lean back in my armchair. I’m numb. Maybe it’s shock. Or maybe, buried somewhere deep inside me, it’s that I actually don’t care. If things went down they way Sue says they did, I must have been plenty angry, at least at first.

“Oh, you were,” she says, when I tell her. “But you only admitted it to me a little less than a year ago. Come to think of it, it’s the last time we talked. I called you to wish you a happy birthday.”

“What did I say?” God, I hate this.

“Just that. That you had been so angry at him, that sometimes you thought you hated him, but that at the time you couldn’t admit it even to yourself, because he was so sick.” Sue is silent for a while. “You didn’t hate him, of course. You loved him. Nobody would have done what you did for him otherwise.”

“After he died, I told my sister that he was the love of my life,” I say slowly, trying to ignore the tightening in my chest and the ache in my jaw.

“Well, now you know that’s not true, right?”

“What do you mean?”

“Gil, of course.”

I smile. He’s probably still asleep. We try to sleep during each other’s shifts, but whenever our days off coincide, that’s one of my favorite things. Lying next to him and feeling at peace with the world.

“Yeah,” I agree softly.

 

He arranges his schedule so that he can come pick me up from the airport. We’re never demonstrative in public, but this time I almost run to him and he wraps his arms around me so tightly I can hardly breathe.

“God, I thought you might not come back,” he mutters.

I kiss his neck, which is the only place I can reach the way he’s holding me.

“Where else would I go? This is home. With you.”

 

I no longer dream of remembering the past.

I remember the first time I noticed Gil’s blue eyes, in the hospital, and the first time he and I kissed, on the couch, after my accident. I remember when we moved in together, into my house, and I remember the first time we made love, right after the doctors removed my cast. I remember making love, and eating steaks and drinking beer on the back porch, and the first time he tried to smuggle one of his terrariums into the house.

I dream of the future that’s filled with possibilities that I can’t even imagine.

But mostly I just concentrate on today, and on how great life is.

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