'Tis yours truly again, Serenity's Ghost, with another continuation (yes, I'm sorry and I know it must be frustrating that you need all these background stories). Well I hope you can enjoy this, even if you decide not to read the others 'Make Me Fall' and 'Visitor'. Enjoy.

~o~

Nina's Point of View

Doctor Holiday called me into her office bright and early on Monday morning. Maybe it should have sounded like trouble, since she expressly stated that it had nothing to do with my own health, but Christmas was at the end of the week and I was on a high. Christmas was my favourite time of year. Somehow I had convinced the White Knight to let me get a small Christmas tree for my room. I was going to put it in the foyer but then I realised that some people might have considered it inappropriate. Usually, I did what I wanted but now I was trying to be a better person. Since our last fight about Circe, White and I hadn't had an argument. My spine injury had totally healed a week ago, the week after we'd gone to the beach, and I was glad to be up and about, doing my usual up and down.

I walked into her office and her expression wasn't grave but it wasn't cheerful either. Her mind reeked of what she was about to tell me but I tried not to tune in. I was trying desperately to ignore it. She would tell me herself.

"Good morning, Holi. Start with the bad news," I said, right off the bat. "I'm dying, aren't I? That's why you said it had nothing to do with my health. Because I have none, right?" She laughed and I felt better knowing that the issue wasn't so horrible that she couldn't laugh. I walked over and had a seat on the bed of the CT scanner.

"No, no. I'm here to talk to you about Rex," she answered.

"You're going to tell me that you're not going to let me have him all to myself, aren't you? Oh, Doc, I might be okay with that because it's you, but think of how Six would feel." She rolled her eyes.

"Oh, please. Be serious for a minute." I looked at my bare wrist and began to quietly count backwards from sixty. "Nina." I stopped counting, looked up at her and smiled.

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

"Like you don't already know. You probably read that off my mind ages ago."

"Actually, I'm suppressing it, so no. I'm waiting for you to tell me."

She took a breath and let it go and then looked straight at me with serious eyes.

"You know about Rex's memory blackouts, don't you?" she asked me.

"Yeah. I followed him to Hong Kong that one time when he slashed his PDA." She nodded.

"I heard. Therefore, you should be aware that the possibility of it happening again is not small." I nodded and looked out the glass window feet away from me.

"There's nothing I can do about that though."

"Will you be prepared to stay with him if he does? He'll forget all about you, too." I shrugged.

"I'm in love with him. I have no choice. I wouldn't ever want to leave him when he's vulnerable like that. Besides, he has his journal, doesn't he?" My eyes darted back to her, my head still in the direction of the glass to my left.

"I don't think you're taking this seriously, Nina. If he forgets, there is a chance that he won't fall in love with you again when he's learning about his old memories. You'll have to tell all your stories over again and if you become friends, that love you have now may never blossom again. You realise that, don't you?"

I turned my head back to her and looked her in the eyes for a long moment before raking a hand through my hair.

"He might not love me again, but I always will and I will tell every story I've ever told and more if I have to. I'll make him fall in love with me again. He'll still be the same old Rex. Chances are the same stimuli will have the same effect on him. He'll still like rock music, he'll probably still be best friends with Noah, he'll probably still be close to Six like a kid to his cooler but kind of scary uncle and he'll still like this reckless, tattooed, foul-mouth of a girl...probably."

"And if he doesn't fall for you again?"

"Then that's my cross to bear, if you'll excuse the religious reference. I'll stay by his side if we're friends and I'll find a way to give him his space if we aren't. I've let go of people before. I can still do it...I think."

"Yes, but they came back at some point. If Rex blacks out, I don't think he's going to come back."

"Are you trying to discourage me, Doctor Holiday?"

"No, Nina. I'm just making sure that you're prepared to deal with this if you're serious. You have to anticipate that something like this could happen and know how to react. You have to make those decisions sooner rather than later."

"I'll leave Providence if I have to, if we can't get along. You managed without me before. You can do it again."

"Where will you go? Providence needs you now."

"They don't. And I've always been a nomad. I'll go back to that."

"No, Nina. I can't let you do that."

"I'll always have Zane to dig me out if I need it. Knowing him, he'd probably buy me a house just to make me stay put."

"And Circe, Bobo and Noah? They're your friends, too, remember? Circe's going to lose her reason for being here if you leave."

"Circe's gotta grow up and find her resolve sometime, doesn't she?"

"Nina!"

"Okay, okay. So I didn't mean that. If it becomes a problem...leaving is my best option. Rex won't have to see me, and I won't be forced to see him and remember all those painfully sweet memories we had together. Win-win."

"No, Nina. It'll hurt you more to be gone. And you've made a permanent mark on all your friends."

"Our friends. See, that's the danger of being too close to your boyfriend and his friends. When things get nasty, people may have to pick sides. Even I'd encourage them to go towards him, though."

"Are you giving up? There's something I never thought I'd see you do. I guess you're not the girl I thought you were."

"Maybe, maybe not. If I try and I fail this time, I can't keep trying. If Rex doesn't like me, I'm not going to make him hate me by irritating him. I'll just keep out of his hair. End of story."

"I'll help if I can, Nina. I won't let this die. You're good for each other. I can see that." I cracked a smile.

"Thanks, Doc. You're good for him, too."

"Well, Rex is important to all of us. We need to do what we can for him." I started for the door, smirking.

"I wasn't talking about Rex."

When I walked out, Rex was right at the door and looked shocked to see me walk out.

"Nina," he said. "Uh, hey." I put my hands on my hips and gave him a look.

"How long have you been eavesdropping?" He scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Eavesdropping? I wasn't eavesdropping...Okay, I heard the whole thing." I smiled.

"I'm a bad influence. Let's go get breakfast."

"We should talk about this." I looped my arm through his and we started walking down the hall.

"If you want." He stopped.

"Not 'if I want'. We have to. Doctor Holiday is right. I could black out at any time and...and...I...I don't want to lose you." His face was sincere and worried. I decided we should head to his room instead so I started to pull him in that direction. This was not a hallway discussion.

"You don't want to lose me?" I repeated. He gave a half-smile.

"That's what I said. Keep up." I smiled back and I put my arms around him and hugged him to me.

"Don't use my own retort against me. You need to stop hanging around with me."

"But I love you. I don't want to. Ever. I could never not like you."

"You never know."

"Don't say that. I want to love you forever so I'll do what I can to make sure that I'll always be in love with you."

"I'll make you fall for me all over again."

"And I'll just fall. Because you're everything I could ever need."

I let go of him and took a seat on his bed. He followed and came to sit next to me, taking my hand in his and holding it on his leg. We sat in silence for a long time, not awkwardly, but more appreciatively. I removed my hand from his but wrapped my arms around him and leaned into his chest, his arm coming around my waist and holding me to him.

"Can I tell you a secret, Rex?"

"Anything. You know I'm here for you."

"That's just it. I need you. I don't know if I could be okay again without you. Maybe, on the off chance that we both end up in a huge disagreement and we mutually decide to break up, I might be able to be without you, but I think it's pretty much impossible. We have nothing to fight about. I love you and I'll always love you because what I feel for you, what I know about you, is real and honest and genuine. It's absolute. And just the thought of losing you, despite all the bravado I put on, it makes me feel so nervous and so uncomfortable and so depressed that I have to shove it behind a wall and forget about it or else I'll go insane. You're my world, Rex. Losing you would be worse than dying."

His free hand came to lift my face off of his chest and his lips came down on mine urgently, sending my whole body alight with an electric pulse. His tongue started search for mine and found it, touching and twisting and caressing in a way that sent my hunger for him into hyper-drive. I had to fight down the urge to climb onto his lap and push him onto his bed. He was getting better at this French kissing thing after just a week of practice. It made my heart melt and my hunger go alight when he kissed me like that. What was he doing to me?

Every touch of his tongue was making me that much closer to losing it. Maybe it was my fault because I started it, because I had kissed him that way first, more than giving him the validation for it. I couldn't be sorry. Nothing in the world could be worth missing out on this feeling, even if it was weakening my resolve to not cross certain lines that other people had already crossed at my age. He wouldn't cross it, for sure. I knew I was in good hands. I knew I wouldn't either. But moments like this made me consider if we did...

His lips lifted off of mine, his tongue leaving mine and there was this look in his eye like he had been thinking the same thing that I had. After a few seconds, the corners of my lips turned up and his lips mirrored mine.

"Hungry?" he asked. I grinned.

"Yeah."

"Let's go get some food."

"Yeah, I'm hungry for that, too." He laughed and we got off his bed and headed out the door. He gave me a hug as we walked and then let go too soon.