Forget Me Not

Finally finished this with substantial help from suerum. Ugh, a bit AU, but no overly so. Just pretend Franco wasn't around and you'll be fine. Characters aren't mine. Enjoy!

Chapter 1:

Spinelli really hated walking through the park these days.

After first finding Georgie, lying there, dead, he'd avoided it as much as possible. Then, he stumbled upon Maxie lying unconscious there, and he'd feared the worst. In the exact same spot, practically in the exact same pose. His heart had nearly stopped. Subsequent to finding his beloved Maxie there, brutalized by the moronic Russian thugs, he'd vowed never to walk through the park again.

Until today. Today, he needed to get to Sonny's as soon as possible. A storm was practically flooding Port Charles, power lines were down all over the place, and Jason was unreachable. Max had managed to get through to the Penthouse – where Spinelli had been awaiting his Master's return – and asked him to run over to Mr. Sir's and deliver a message to Jason. Max would have done it himself, he'd said, had he not been trapped in one of the warehouses due to the storm.

So, here he was, rushing through the torrential downpour, howling wind, and occasional crash thunder and lightning in his mad dash across the park.

Then he neared the dreaded steps.

It was a ridiculous phobia. Much like his unfounded fear of clowns and his slightly more logical distaste for elevators. Really. What were the chances of him finding someone else on those steps? He was running out of potential candidates for the position. The only person whom he cared about and hadn't yet found on the steps was the very man he was going to see. But, then…

Oh, no, not again, he thought, as the muddled figure of a human being lay strewn out across the concrete. He couldn't quite make out who it was through the heavy sheets of rain, so he drew closer. He was fairly certain his heart did stop this time, as he gazed down upon his mentor's unconscious form.

"Stone Cold!" He shouted, falling to his knees beside the man. His fingers landed on Jason's water-chilled neck, searching frantically for a pulse he couldn't locate with the torrent of rain pounding against Jason's skin.

"No, no, no…" He mumbled frantically, mind torn on what to do. He could leave Jason here, out in the rain and go for help. With so many enemies running around at the moment, leaving the man lying completely vulnerable in the park did not seem the wisest choice to make, and Jason was considerably heavier than Maxie, so he opted for his third choice.

He doubted his cell phone would work in these conditions, with so many lines down, but he had to try. Luckily - and he sent up a silent prayer of thanks to whomever happened to be listening - the sound of a phone ringing on the other end of the line came through, and a moment later, he was connected to 911. He called in the location, one he was far too familiar with by this point, and then slammed the phone shut, returning his attention to Jason.

It was only then that he noticed the faint stream of red in the rainwater descending the steps. It had begun to stain his soaked jeans, and Spinelli then searched frantically for its source. Finally determining it to be coming from the back of Jason's head, he was rather thankful he hadn't tried to move the elder man.

"Stone Cold. Come on, wake up." He begged. He could not, would not, lose another person he loved to this damned park. No. He outright refused. He leaned over Jason's body enough to interrupt the flow of rain and felt desperately for a sign of life once again. Where there should have been a beating pulse, there was nothing. Breathing was hard to distinguish given the torrent of rain that assaulted both of them, so Spinelli opted to perform CPR instead of sitting idly by. He pressed his hands over Jason's sternum and sincerely hoped he could pull this off without breaking any ribs. After a grueling thirty chest compressions, Spinelli moved to carefully tilt Jason's head back. He covered Jason's mouth with his own and pinched his nose shut and breathed precious air into the older man's lungs.

"Come on…" he begged, as he watched the air make Jason's chest rise and then fall again. He repeated the process again, and then checked for a pulse. Still nothing. Back to the chest compressions. One, two, three… all the way to thirty he went again, and then moved for two more rescue breaths. Checked the pulse again, and this time the feel of a slow, rhythmic beat under the tips of his fingers made Spinelli heave a sigh of relief. Alive. He was still alive.

His head fell idly to rest against Jason's rain-soaked shirt, glad that he may have helped just the smallest bit in return for all the things Jason had always done for him. "Alive…" He panted, with a hysterical smile.

The wail of sirens fast approaching made his relief flare even further. He yelled, calling out for them. And a moment later two paramedics in navy windbreakers were pushing him away. Spinelli told them what he had done before they'd arrived even as they braced Jason's neck and wheeled him into the ambulance quickly.

"If you're coming, get in." One of the medics called, yelling to be heard over the rain as he held the door open for him. Spinelli hopped in, sitting on the bench where they instructed him, as they began to work on the other man. They hooked up an IV, checked his pulse and temperature. Said things Spinelli didn't even try to comprehend as a third medic drove them toward General Hospital.

The whole time, Spinelli sat, clutching the other man's hand for dear life.

***

It was already dark out when Jason had started his trek across town to Sonny's. It shouldn't have been, at only 3 in the afternoon, but the heavy cloud-cover made it seem more like midnight. The rain was already coming down in sheets by the time he'd reached the park, making the public area one of virtual abandon.

"Yeah, Max. I'll be at the office in a few minutes." He said, trying to keep his cell phone from soaking up too much water. "Let me know what you find."

"I'll get back to you in a little while. Milo and I are going through the information now." Max told him, and the phone call ended with that.

Jason ducked his head and walked a little faster through the park, intent on his destination, thinking over everything that had to be discussed during this meeting – The building strength of the Irish mob in Port Charles, what should be done to control them, safety concerns pertaining to both Sonny's place and the Penthouse, but mostly to the latter - so that Spinelli would be safe and secure there… The list went on and on.

While he was still on alert, the sound of the rain and wind covered up his attackers approach quite effectively, he realized, all too late to stop it.

The piece of metal – a crowbar, maybe, he'd thought in the brief flicker of a second before it hit – came out of nowhere. Before he'd even realized it, he'd been down.

***

Upon arriving at the hospital, everything had been a blur. They'd sent him to the waiting room while they wheeled Jason into the depths of the hospital.

Eventually, Robin appeared in front of him. "Spinelli?" She asked, voice hesitant when she spotted the blood stains on his pants. "Are you hurt?"

He shook his head mutely, eyes glued to the tiled floor.

He only looked up when Robin sat down beside him. "If you're not hurt, why are you here? And you're soaked, too."

"The Jackal found Stone Cold incapacitated in the merciless park. In the same locale as he once did the Wise Georgie and then the Fair Maximista. Could… could you perhaps ascertain any information on the Stone Cold one's condition?"

Robin, who had looked suitably worried since Spinelli had mentioned the fact that Jason had been hurt, quickly nodded. "Of course. I'll be back in a minute." She said, scurrying off to go check on his condition, as much for her own sake as Spinelli's.

She reappeared only a moment later, a grim look on her face that sent Spinelli's heart through the floor. "Is he…?"

"He's stable." Robin said, and she watched him visibly relax, she offered him a set of dry scrubs. "But he's still out. He has a pretty bad concussion."

"Might the Jackal be able to see him?"

"He's Patrick's case. I'll have to check with him. Why don't you go and change while I do that?"

He nodded and slipped away long enough to do as instructed. Robin was still on the phone when he returned, but she ended the call just a moment later. "Alight. Follow me." She instructed, and Spinelli was practically on her heels as she led him toward the room Jason had been placed in. "If he wakes up, call for a nurse. I'd stay, but I still have rounds."

The young man nodded, falling into the seat beside his mentor's hospital bed.

It was an unnerving experience to see Jason so still and unmoving, just as it was equally unnerving to see him lying on the cold concrete steps in the park.

"Stone Cold?" He said quietly, cautiously. No answer came, and he scooted his chair closer to the hospital bed. "Jason?"

The only answer he received was the monotonous beeping and pulsing from the EKG monitor on the other side of the bed. So he resigned himself to the wait.

Four hours passed in slow succession, and eventually Spinelli found himself sleeping restlessly in the uncomfortable chair, his head resting on the edge of the bed. The beeping of the monitor abruptly faltered from its previous pattern and alarmed Spinelli into consciousness, because if that sound meant what he thought it did, Jason had just flat-lined.

But, when he looked up, he found heavy-lidded blue eyes slowly blinking down at him in pure confusion. The EKG electrodes that had previously been attached to Jason's chest had evidently been removed, no doubt by the uncooperative patient himself.

"The Jackal is glad to see that you're awake and well, Stone Cold." Spinelli greeted with a relieved smile.

The look of confusion was still present. "Stone Cold?" Spinelli prompted again.

"Who are you?"

***

The first thing he'd noticed, upon returning to consciousness, had been the pounding ache in his skull. A feeling he was regrettably familiar with, but that didn't make it any better.

He was in the hospital. That much he assessed from the monotonous beeping from the EKG monitor. That had to go. Eyes still closed, not ready to deal with light or anything at all yet, he blindly groped along the cords on his chest, tugging the annoying little adhered things off of him and tossing them aside. There was a bruise there, as well, in the center of his chest. Someone had performed CPR on him. That was somewhat alarming.

The obnoxious beeping that followed the removal of the EKG strips was even worse than their intermittent noises, and it was in his inspection of how to make that noise cease and desist that he discovered he was not alone. A boy, just out of his teens, Jason would have guessed, was curled up in the chair, leaning on the side of the bed. He had… no idea whom this person was.

He startled awake a second later, Jason figured it was because of the noise.

"The Jackal is glad to see that you're awake and well, Stone Cold." The nameless kid greeted him, with a cheery smile on his face that went so far as to light up his deep green eyes. They're… familiar, in the kind of way one found various people on the street familiar. 'One of those faces' or something like that.

Jason didn't answer the confusing salutation, unaware as to what a jackal had to do with anything and who this 'Stone Cold' person was.

"Stone Cold?" The kid prompted again, looking decidedly worried this time.

Jason stared, "Who are you?" He asked, because it was all he really wanted to know. He knew who he was, he knew why he was here – or at least had a general idea, given that his head was still pulsing with pain – but this kid, who looked so concerned, so invested in his apparent well-being, who was he?

***

Spinelli stared back at Jason in something akin to absolute horror. Jason… didn't recognize him? Knowing, as he did, of his mentor's previous encounters with amnesia, his concern multiplied exponentially. If this was anything like the incident that had turned Jason Quartermaine into Jason Morgan then there was little hope that the best friendship the Ace of Cyberspace had ever had would survive.

"Pardon?" He asked, voice wavering slightly.

"I don't know who you are." Jason said, matter-of-factly. "What's your name?"

"Damian Spinelli." He answered, watching for signs of recognition in his mentor. "You truly don't know me, Stone Cold?"

The elder shook his head. "What's a Stone Cold?"

Spinelli frowned. "You are. It is but a nickname that your humble Jackal has for you."

"…I have a jackal?"

He might have laughed a little bit at that. "No, that is, I am the Jackal, the Ace of Cyberspace."

"Oh."

***

The complex exchange, full of nicknames and words he couldn't quite follow at the moment left his headache exponentially worse and it wasn't long before a nurse happened to poke her head in and realize he was awake. She notified Robin, who notified Patrick. They both showed up and promptly pulled the strange kid, Spinelli, out of the room.

"Spinelli says you don't remember him?" Robin inquired, while Patrick took stock of his patient.

Jason nodded, and found it relieving that he recognized both of them, even seemed to know of recent events in their lives – like their wedding and baby Emma. He said as much to the doctors and then added, "He can't have been around that long if I remember that much, right?"

Robin and Patrick exchanged confused looks. "Spinelli's been with you since 2006."

Patrick, at that, sent him off for some tests before his notoriously testy patient could recall that he was in the midst of an escape attempt before Spinelli's presence had interrupted him.

***

The tests, Spinelli learned some three hours later, revealed nothing that would explain Jason's rather specific memory loss. It seemed he recalled a good portion of events, just none that had anything to do with him. It's as if he'd never existed in Jason's world.

"He's signing himself out on us." Patrick reported, tossing the discharge paperwork at an unsuspecting secretary.

Spinelli scrambled to follow after him, inquiring about anything he should look out for, do and not do, and Patrick informed him in detail.

"It's very important that he stays unstressed by all of this. He might remember, he might not. Don't push him to try to do anything or think of something. Just look out for him." The doctor listed, offering him some helpful pamphlets on the situation. He handed Spinelli a prescription for some light pain meds. "If any headaches start, make sure he keeps it under control or else get him back in here."

"The Jackal will not fail." The younger said, and headed back to Jason's room to collect his roommate for the trip home – he'd already put a call in to Max for a ride back to Casa de Stone Cold.

Before he could get there, however, his cell phone rung, and peculiarly, it was Mr. Sir's number appearing on screen. It was then that Spinelli realized that he, the doctors, and Max were the only ones who had been made aware of Jason's altered state. He also reminded himself that Jason's cell phone was likely destroyed in the rainstorm and if Mr. Sir was desperate enough to call him for Jason's whereabouts, something must have been up.

"'Tis the Jackal," Spinelli greeted, not terribly enthusiastically.

"I know that, freak boy, I called you." Sonny spat back at him. "Where's Jason?"

"Stone Cold cannot speak with you at the moment. He was injured and needs to recuperate." The hacker responded, quite bravely in the face of Sonny Corinthos.

Sonny didn't even seem to hear him. "Let me talk to Jason."

"Negative, I will relay any information you might have to Stone Cold that will not put any undue stress upon his recovery."

"What happened to him?"

"He… he does not recall certain aspects of recent years."

Sonny seemed to hum in intrigue at that information and Spinelli found himself wondering if it were wise to tell him or not. "Fine, I'll talk to him later." And he hung up before the hacker could further respond.

Before he could once again attempt to venture into the hospital room housing his currently absent-minded mentor, his phone rang out again, this time displaying Maximista's number. That was an equally strange occurrence these days, as they didn't talk much anymore, courtesy of a rather messy break-up.

"'Tis I, the Jackal," He greeted again, with about as much enthusiasm as he'd had with Sonny's call.

"Oh, good." Maxie's voice chirped in his ear. "You're there. I need your help with something, Spinelli. Can you come over to Crimson? It's an emergency, I swear."

Spinelli bit his lip. She sounded truly distressed by whatever emergency she had, but Stone Cold… He didn't think that his master should be left alone with his current state. "Will this issue take long?" He inquired. "The Jackal has some most pressing situations of his own."

"No, no." She assured him. "It won't take long, but I really need your help. Please, Spinelli?"

"I'll be there shortly." He promised, and ended the call with a quick goodbye so that he could inform Max that he wouldn't be joining them on the trip home.

***

Jason was looking forward to returning home. He hoped that that, at least, would be familiar, so he could get his mind off of the things that he didn't recall. Like Damian Spinelli.

And it was his familiar, clean, organized, home. But, given that he wasn't quite clear on everything, he opted to take inventory of what had changed from his memory.

First of all, there was a laptop sitting on the desk by the door. That was new, but he figured maybe he'd just finally learned some tech skills. He even tried to start it, but found that he didn't remember the passwords needed to gain access. Quickly giving up on that conquest, he searched the kitchen, wherein he found startling amounts of orange soda and several bags of barbeque chips. This was peculiar, given that as far as he knew, he would never consider ingesting either of them. Deciding that he'd sort out restocking his kitchen correctly later, he grabbed a water bottle and headed up to his room to get out of the hospital scrubs he'd been sent home in. His room, at least, remained totally unchanged.

Several hours after passing out on his bed, he woke to the sounds of an apparent intruder moving about downstairs. Alert immediately, and glad that those reflexes had not been forgotten, he was on his feet, and locating the gun tucked into his closet.

Slowly, he crept through the hallway and down the stairs, peering around the corner only to see…

Spinelli.

He pocketed the gun, and continued downstairs. The kid, such nerve he had, was on his computer, with a bottle of orange soda and a bag of chips set beside him, just sitting there like he owned the place.

"What are you doing here?" Jason demanded.

"Oh!" Spinelli jumped in surprise, spinning around to face him. "Pardon me, Stone Cold. I… I neglected to inform you that I reside here as well. At Casa de Stone Cold. With you." He answered, looking quite concerned when he spotted the gun visible in Jason's jeans. "The Jackal is most repentant for startling you, master."

The elder seemed quite surprised by this explanation. "You do?"

"The regrettably pink room upstairs would serve as adequate proof, I imagine?" He suggested, already closing the laptop and getting to his feet.

Jason followed after him, even more surprised to find that the kid hadn't been lying. The spare room that had once housed Brenda was still pink, but looked rather like an explosion had gone through it with various odds and ends that were apparently Spinelli's. "Okay, you live here." He turned and exited the room. "I'm going to Sonny's."

"But the medically inclined one's requested that you stay relaxed in order to recover. Dealing with Mr. Sir's demands would be in direct opposition to-" But Spinelli found himself talking to an empty room. Jason was already on his way out.

***

Maxie's emergency hadn't taken him terribly long, at least it shouldn't have. Some data had gotten lost somewhere with regard to schedules and paychecks and such and in order to save her job from the wrath of Kate, she'd called up Spinelli to locate it in cyberspace. Unfortunately, the process took a lot longer than it would have if she'd given him accurate information, rather than mixing up a couple of dates.

All in all, he'd taken three hours to complete the task, saved her job, stopped to get Jason's prescription filled, and returned to Casa de Stone Cold as quickly as possible. Which turned out not to matter all that much. He'd searched out Jason as soon as he'd returned and found the older man soundly asleep upstairs. Opting to let him rest, he headed back downstairs to his computer, letting it boot up and frowning in confusion when he found that someone had made attempts to get into it.

He'd been in the midst of running diagnostic scans to explain the odd phenomenon when Jason had come downstairs. Then it had all just gone badly.

Jason was obviously not thrilled to discover that he had a roommate now (even though he had technically had a roommate for several years now) and Spinelli tried not to let that get to him. But, Jason had been acting weird before the accident, too. Distant and evasive at times, it had already been putting Spinelli on edge. This was… this was just so much worse because there wasn't anything he could do to figure this out. There was no jackaling the solution out of cyberspace for this one.

Upon Stone Cold's leaving, he returned to his computer, knowing that showing up at Sonny's would only make things worse.

***

His headache returned with a vengeance upon arriving at Sonny's place – after a quick detour to the coffee house that no longer stood, and when had that happened? – and he was beginning to suspect that the kid had been right and that he should have stayed home when Sonny finally captured his attention.

"So, you don't remember anything about Spinelli?" He asked, sounding something between suspicious and hopeful all at once.

"He's the only person I haven't recognized." He informed Sonny, who certainly seemed the most solidly familiar point in his memory. He even remembered Dominic and Ethan and the various other recently arrived inhabitants of Port Charles. Spinelli seemed to be the only blank.

Sonny snorted. "I'd say that's a good thing. Wish I could forget the lunatic." He rolled his eyes, and dropped himself into a chair across from Jason. "The kid's a freak. No good at all."

"Then why is he living with me?" Jason inquired. If the kid was useless, why was he here? Was he in on the organization?

"Hey, that was your idea. Don't ask me. I mean, yeah, the kid's good with computers, I guess, but that's about it. He can't fight. He can't shoot – unless he's shooting himself in the foot." Sonny shook his head at the mere thought of the good for nothing hacker. "And then there are all of his stupid nicknames. Stone Cold, Jackal, Mr. Sir. It's insane. Hell, he calls you 'Master', how sick and perverted is that? The freak is a waste of space, Jason, trust me."

Jason sat silently absorbing all of this enlightening information on the hacker, letting Sonny paint the picture of the strange cyber geek supposedly residing with him.

"Hell, he even brought the FBI down on us! And there's that joke of a P.I. office he has." He scoffed in utter incredulity. The phone on Sonny's desk rang then, distracting from his Anti-Spinelli rant, and he answered with a terse, "what?"

Jason tuned the conversation out and let his mind wander back to Spinelli. Sure, the kid was weird. Strange and awkward in his own skin, it seemed. But he had a feeling Sonny was exaggerating some points. He'd have to figure out some of it for himself, he supposed, because there was no way Jason would let Spinelli stay at the Penthouse unless he had a reason.

"Sonny." He said, pausing the elder's phone conversation. "I'm going back to the penthouse for a bit. I'll call you later, or something."

Sonny nodded, and Jason took his leave.

***

Spinelli wasn't worried. Really. Just because head injuries were risky, and Jason was out there in the rain again, and not here, where Spinelli could keep an eye on him… Had he taken the bike? Oh, god. He hoped Max had driven him to Sonny's.

Okay, so, Spinelli was worried. Who could blame him?

Not to mention Sonny was probably filling Jason's head with his paranoid delusions over Jason's loyalty. This had to be Mr. Sir's fondest wish come true. A Jason who had no loyalty to Spinelli, a reset button on his memories. Again.

The door opened and closed downstairs, prompting Spinelli to leave the haven of his room.

"Stone Cold?" He called out, following the sound of footsteps into the kitchen. Jason was there, searching out a bottle of water in the refrigerator. "How… how's your head?"

"It's fine." He grumbled out, even though it was pounding.

Spinelli knew better than that. Jason would never admit to being in pain – if he ever did, Spinelli would be shocked and very, very alarmed – so, he crossed the room to the bottle of pain pills he'd picked up earlier. The Jason he knew, the one who remembered him, he could probably convince. But, this new Jason, who knew him no better than a stranger, was much less likely to give in.

He handed Jason the bottle. "In the event that you change your mind…" He offered, dropping his gaze to the floor. "Is there anything the Jackal can be of use with? Any business with Mr. Sir that needs looking into?"

Jason stared at the bottle, but then his stone cold gaze hardened and turned on Spinelli. "There is something."

"What, Stone Cold?"

"Can you find someplace else to stay?" Jason requested, and he watched without even so much as a blink as Spinelli's face fell and he sort of caved in on himself. "I'm not used to having a roommate. I don't think I can handle it right now."

Spinelli's voice faltered when he attempted to respond. He tried again, this time with marginal success. "The, the Jackal is wary of leaving Stone Cold here alone, given the instructions from the medically inclined ones…" He fought to keep his voice even and steady, but it was only just managed.

"Really. I'm fine." Jason insisted again. To further establish this claim, Jason stepped to the garbage can and tossed the pills away. "I don't need anyone here babysitting me."

"I…" Spinelli started to protest further, but Patrick's words in the hospital gave him pause. Stressing Jason out was not a good thing to be doing – and he'd be getting enough of that from Sonny, anyway – so, as much as it hurt, as much as it sent a crushing weight down on his chest at the mere thought, he nodded. "If that is what you want, Stone Cold. I'll take my leave in the morning. If that is amenable?"

Jason nodded. "Okay."

Spinelli left the room as fast as he could manage after that, retreating up to the temporary sanctity of the regrettably pink room that would not be his for much longer. He shut the door behind him, and then slid down it, until his knees were pressed to his chest.

This couldn't be happening, could it?

With his head in his hands, he cursed that damned park yet again. It had claimed Georgie, then nearly Maxie, and now it was taking the one true friendship he had ever had from him. In a way this was worse than what had become of Wise Georgie. She had been gone. It had been simple, at the end of all things.

But Jason, he was still here. Still alive and breathing, and for the most part, himself. It wasn't that Jason had been taken away from him in a physical sense, but in a mental one that Spinelli had no bearing over. He hadn't been removed from the puzzle, but he had been changed. And he no longer fit with Spinelli.

So, in the morning, he'd go to Kelly's and get a room there.