Disclaimer: I don't own them. I'm just messing around with them.

Author's Note: Here I am, with a brand new fic! Although I must say my management skills when it comes to juggling fics is really quite lacking. But still, I'm giving it a try, trying to work around this story and WTHI at the same time. If I can't pull it off, this one will have to be shelved until I finish WTHI. Anyway, about this fic, it's rather different. It'll shock you at some points, confuse you a lot in the beginning.. but eventually things will start making sense. I think I'll have to refer to flashbacks in later chapters... anyway, the title is taken from a beautiful song by Sarah Brightman. Otherwise, I do hope you enjoy it!

Chapter 1
"Take a look at my body.
Look at my hands.
There's so much here that I don't understand.
Your face-saving promises
Whispered like prayers.
I don't need them."
My Skin - Nathalie Merchant

He propped his shoulder against the doorjamb, arms folded critically against his chest, and stared into the average-sized bedroom. There was nothing special about the single bed in the middle, supported on both sides by two nightstands devoid of any personal touches. There was nothing beautiful about the plain white curtains, drawn firmly together to block the streaming sunlight. The closet against the wall boasted a rich kind of oak wood that gave the room a peculiar smell. He couldn't decide whether the ancient smell appealed to him or not.

It was a mundane room.

And he wouldn't have glanced at it twice if it weren't for the woman lying under the sheets, her honey blond hair in desperate tangles across the white pillow, her delicate face lifelessly pale. The bandage he had placed on her head looked big and unprofessional, and it made her seem even more childish, smaller.

Unfurling his arms, he wriggled his thumb and index finger, swaying the glass bottle of beer between them, tapping it absently against his denim-clad thigh. The obscured golden light emphasized the gentle rise and fall of her chest under the crisp white sheets. It made him feel eternally grateful that she was still alive and that the bruises and cuts on her face were healing nicely with a promise not to mar the porcelain skin beneath.

She was lucky and beautiful, too slight for his taste, but he had felt inexplicably drawn to her.

Raising the almost empty bottle to his lips, he finished it off and turned on his heel, heading towards the kitchen where he tossed the green long-neck into the trashcan, relishing the disturbing clink as it hit the bottom. He plowed his fingers into his unruly dark curls, frowning at how long they had gotten. Having always worn his hair short, he found the long bangs infuriatingly annoying but didn't bother much with them. It didn't matter anymore. Nothing mattered anymore. His life had seen its tragic fall, and he no longer cared for anything but his freedom. And maybe for the woman in the bed, whose name he didn't know.

With a tired sigh, he walked back to what he had dubbed her bedroom, and he found himself staring not at her familiar still form but into the most stunning pair of gray eyes he'd ever seen. She was wide-awake, looking around in confusion, wincing in pain while he stood there motionless, trying desperately to work the muscles of his jaw.

"Where am I?" she croaked, struggling to sit up.

Spurred into instinctive motion, he rushed to her side and helped her bolster her frail body against the pillows he arranged behind her back. He held the glass of water he'd prepared out to her, letting the straw hover next to her lips. She looked at him curiously before taking a tentative sip and bringing a hand to her head gingerly.

"Does it hurt?" he asked sympathetically.

She barely nodded, her fingers flitting over the sheets, tugging them away to stare at the overly large clothes engulfing her slender frame. "Where am I?"

He wished he'd found clothes that fit her, but scouring the over-sized cabin hadn't proven useful. Dropping onto the plastic chair he'd positioned by her bed, he pushed back into it, studying her unwaveringly. She looked scared and confused, emotions he had grown blind to. "You're in a town a couple of hours outside Boston." It was a gamble, but his voice didn't miss a beat. "Do you remember what happened?" He waited quietly for her as she furrowed her brow and licked her chapped lips twice.

She stared at her battered hands in wonder. "The rain. I remember the rain. I couldn't see anything. I don't know why. I shouldn't have been there. I… It was dark…" She fell silent, her bosom vibrating agitatedly, and her arms moved restlessly around, searching for a resemblance, but he knew she found none when she accidentally knocked the glass of water off the nightstand, sending it and its tepid contents into his lap.

His reflex was quicker than the pull of gravity. The cool glass fell into his palm, and he came to his feet quickly, setting it aside and brushing away the water staining his faded blue jeans.

"I'm sorry," she whispered, her eyes welling with ashamed tears. "I can't remember."

He leaned forward and placed a comforting hand on her thin arm, surprised by the electric jolt that traveled from the tips of his fingers to his very core. Their eyes met across the crackling air. "It's okay. Don't get upset, it'll only make things worse. You're probably still groggy from the accident," he said soothingly.

"The accident," she repeated, her voice heavy with incredulity. "I was… was I alone?" She was almost afraid to ask. Her eyes were terrified at the prospect, and he felt bizarrely protective of this willowy woman.

Awkwardly removing his hand from where it lay comfortably on the inside of her elbow, he started calmly, "Ms…" He trailed off, expecting her to supply a name, but she only managed to look even more stricken than before. And he felt his heart sink with both relief and dread.

"What's my name? Why can't I remember? Who am I?" Her voice rose with panic and twin tears slipped from her eyes over her smooth cheeks.

Impulsively, he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled her into his arms, desperate to calm her frantic thrashing. "Shhh," he whispered in her hair. "It'll be alright," he promised, but he knew it wasn't the complete truth. Things weren't going to be alright for either of them. Fate had tossed her right into the insanity of his realm, and there was no way he could let her escape, not at the cost of his own freedom. Instead, he held her tight until she fell against him, exhausted, a soft set of feminine curves fitting perfectly into his side. And his head pounded with the force of blood that rushed to his extremities, making his fingertips itch with the need to touch her. He wondered if she felt it too or if it was his overactive imagination playing tricks on him after days of complete solitude. Shifting on the bed, he set her away from him only to find that she had fallen asleep.

He smiled faintly, his face aching with the forgotten expression, and rearranged the pillows to make her comfortable before carefully laying her injured head against them. He tucked the covers around her shoulders and regretfully left her bedside to the comfort of the well-equipped living room.

He slumped into the ugly brown leather couch, hoisting his boot-clad feet onto the worn coffee table and reached for the dusty book he'd started reading the day before. The Sun Also Rises. The business card he'd used to bookmark his progress slid into his hand. He held it up, his thumb skimming the letters embossed in black against the professional white card.

Derek Shepherd, M.D.
Head of Neurosurgery
Mount Sinai Medical Center

He tore it in half twice, crumpling the sad remnants in a fist he shoved into his pocket. And then he focused on the words running along the pages, trying to make sense of them, but his thoughts were preoccupied with the nameless woman fast asleep in the guest bedroom. He remembered the fear in her gorgeous eyes, glimmering like liquid silver and the terrified look on her face that came with the realization that she didn't know anyone in the world, that her own name was a mystery. He knew the medical term, global amnesia, had seen it once in a patient suffering head trauma a lot more severe than hers, and he had witnessed how frustrating it could get. No matter what it meant for her, he was selfishly glad, pleased that the reckless decision to save her from certain death didn't spell the end for him.

But he knew that eventually her memory would come back, and she would recognize him from exclusive eight o'clock snippets of news, or the front-page of a national newspaper. When that day came, she would become his hostage.

Until then, he was content to think of her as his patient, his Jane Doe.

And that's that. I'll have the second chapter up sometime tomorrow or later today hopefully.

Please tell me what you think!

Thanks for reading!:)