There are some days when none of the healers can get Alice to do anything. She won't eat, won't drink, won't move. They watch, hopelessly unnoticed, as she lies on her side and stares at Frank.
She doesn't know who Frank is or that he's the one who put the ring on her left finger or that the boy who comes to visit is their son, but his face… When nothing seems right and she's confused and she doesn't know where she is and she's so scared, she seeks out his face. And if she looks hard enough, if she makes the effort not to blink, she can recall looking at that same face a long, long time ago.
They're in a different room with floral wallpaper and the cots are pushed together, or maybe it's one big bed. His eyes are closed in a light sleep and his face feels smooth under her fingers. She thinks maybe he snores, but isn't sure. She is sure that she can feel him breathing and that he wakes. He looks so lovely when he wakes up.
She tells him this. He smiles that even lovelier still-half-asleep smile and asks why she's still up. She doesn't know… Maybe she was worried, but she isn't anymore. Not now that she's looking at that lovely still-half-asleep smile of his.
The scene continues and they keep talking, both smiling, but she can't remember what's said. It flies through her mind and it all sounds like buzzing in her ears, like it's being fast-forwarded through, but she doesn't want it to. She wants to make it go in slow-motion so she can treasure every moment and dote on every one of his movements until it's real.
And then— "I love you, Frank." That's her favorite bit. She loves the light in his eyes when she says it, she loves knowing who he is, she loves that she loves him.
"Love you, too, Ally." And she can't see it, but she can tell her eyes light up to match his and she can tell he loves that he loves her, too. And she loves that.
Then he kisses her and that's the last part she can recall.
Present-time Alice puts her hand up to her lips, all her concentration focused on remembering the mutual longing in the kiss and the safety and the way the world stopped spinning just for them.
She almost tells the healers to push their cots together. She wants to caress his cheek with her thumb, She wants him to kiss her again. She wants to fall asleep in his arms. After all, they'd done it all before, right?
But no. She tells herself it's a dream. None of that actually ever happened. How could it? All she knows is this room and this cot. There is no floral wallpaper. There are no mutterings of "I love you". There is no them.
So she looks away from the stranger because that's what he is and the world continues to spin and Alice forgets. Again.
