Well, we are over half-way to the end!
I'm glad that you guys are still sticking in there with me.
Angst isn't for everyone!
Enjoy!
Chapter Seven
Luke and Noah's lives continued on for the next two weeks. They were slowly becoming roommates and not a married couple. A development that was eating away at Noah's heart. He wanted so badly to tell Luke everything about them. To share all of their most intimate details of their lives together, but he was also afraid of losing him. Luke's health was shaky at best. He still went for his weekly check-ups but a doctor had done surgery on his brain! Luke was fragile and he was afraid of telling him something that maybe too much to bear. It wasn't like they had a normal relationship.
His dad tried to kill Luke on like their real first time spent together. Luke had been paralyzed for three months after the attack from his father. They fought through that together. Noah had married an illegal immigrant to help her stay in the country. That fiasco nearly destroyed them. Brian was another hurdle that they needed to get over. How about telling Luke that his step-grandfather secretly had the hots for him for months and kissed him when he was drunk? Then he would have to tell him that when he didn't believe him, Luke turned to drinking. But where would he be in his storytelling if he didn't include the whole election disaster. In Luke's realty, he was just about to start school. Now Noah was going to have to tell him that he was expelled; all because of his need to beat Kevin Davis. The more Noah thought about it the more he realized that this was going to get harder and harder. Noah had the irrational hope that Luke would remember things on his own and Noah would not have to deal with the fallout from telling him about their time together and what happened in the in between.
"Are you sure that you're going to be ok if I go to work for a little while?" Noah asked while they stood on their front lawn. Noah had to go to work and film some segments for 'Oakdale Now'. Kim was being great about Noah getting time off to take care of Luke. He did a lot of his work from home, but today she really needed him at the station.
"Noah, I'm not five years old. I can take care of myself. Casey is going to take me to my appointment and then he's going to bring me home. Stop worrying so much,"
"I can't help it. I want to take care of you," Noah said with a shy sort of smile. Luke had to bite his tongue. He didn't want to be taken care of! He hated that. He hated it when he was younger and he could not believe that that had changed. He decided to play it off.
"I know you do, but I need to do things on my own too. It's part of my therapy. I need to do things for myself. My PT says that repetition will help my memory. Go. I'll be fine,"
Noah nodded. He knew that Luke was right. He didn't want to force too much on him. He needed to help him, but Luke also needed to do things for himself. It would help him in the long run.
"I'll be home by six and then we can go to dinner at your mom's," Noah gave Luke a pat on the shoulder and walked out to his car. As he settled into his seat, his mind couldn't help but go back to how they use to say goodbye to each other. One would grab the other and they made sure to share a kiss before they left each other. When he lay down at night, he would try to trick himself that Luke was gone on a business trip and would be home soon. He kept playing that up over and over again. Deep down he knew that it was pathetic and slightly irrational, like he was avoiding realty, but it helped him fall asleep.
Luke watched Noah pull out of the driveway and proceed down their dirt road. He waited a beat until he was sure he was gone and dashed into the house. He sat at his desk and turned on his laptop. He had been waiting for Noah to be gone for the last two weeks. To give him time to look through all things that he wanted to. Last week he woke up in the middle of the night and decided to go exploring again.
Noah wasn't really telling him anything. He had glossed over details and he knew he had. He could tell. He told him that Maddie had moved to Connecticut to go to Wesleyan. They still kept in touch and that Noah and Maddie were real close. He found out that Adam Munson, Casey's brother was a reformed man, which Luke found so hard to believe. After everything that happened between Gwen and Casey and Adam, Luke was still a skeptic. Will and Gwen had two kids now and were happy. That was a story Luke could believe, but he needed to know more. Noah was just not helping him enough.
Luke woke up late at night again and spent an hour digging through files and everything else on the laptop and nothing. Nothing worth paying attention to. Documents for his foundation and Grimaldi wouldn't tell him how he was feeling about things or how he felt about people. He looked at the clock and saw it said it was nearly 5 am again. Another night of sleep lost. He pushed himself away from the desk and kicked a box with his bare feet. He shook off his stinging toe and went around to Noah's desk. He pulled the chair away and bent down to grab the large cardboard box.
Luke lifted the heavy box up and onto Noah's desk. After turning on the desk lamp, he started to dig through it. There were photos and albums, he flipped one open and it looked like a vacation album. Their wedding album was also there. He also found a few DVD's and letters, but at the bottom of the box he found a portable hard drive and a leather bound book with his initials on it. Noah was hiding this from him. Luke then heard footsteps above him. He froze as he listened; Noah was up. He shoved everything back into the box and put it back under the desk. He tried to leave the office the way he found it. He carefully snuck back up to his room. Just as he closed his door he heard Noah's door open. Luke breathed a sigh of relief as he crawled back into bed. The last thought he had before he fell to asleep was, 'I've got to get back into that box and I have to do it while Noah is gone,'
When he woke up later that morning he realized how stupid he was acting. He was making this into some kind of conspiracy. As if Noah was purposely trying to keep things from him. That he was not telling Luke things to keep him in the dark. He knew that was not true. Sure, he may not know Noah that well but he knew that Noah wanted Luke to remember his past. Why would he want to keep things to himself and not tell him? Luke then decided that he would talk to Noah first, see if he would willingly share details about his forgotten memories.
"Noah, is there anything that you're not telling me?" Luke asked in a casual tone, not accusing. Noah had to swallow his bite of cereal before he could answer. It also gave him a few seconds to think of something to say.
"Why would you think that?" He was able to get out and he thought it sounded convincing.
"Well, you aren't giving me details. Like why did I leave school? How did Damian convince me that he was for real this time? I was always writing, where is all of that stuff? These are the things that I need to remember what I can't,"
"Luke, you need to take things slow. You body is still healing. You had surgery on your brain; you can't expect to get everything back right away. All of this takes time. I know by nature that you are impatient, but you really need to show some right now. If you push yourself, you may cause more damage," Noah said and then got up. He put his dishes in the sink and went into his office.
"You didn't answer my question," Luke said out loud to no one. He took a sip from his coffee and decided to get the information on his own.
That was a week ago and he trying to find the right time to get back into that box. If Noah wasn't going to help him, then he would do it himself. He told Noah that he had a therapy session today when really it was tomorrow. If Noah came home he would tell him that it was cancelled, he was sure he could pull off that lie.
Luke first took out the albums that were in the box. There was the vacation album. It looked like there were about four different vacations in this one book. There were dividers between each separate vacation. This first set was in California, they of course had a shot of them in front of the Hollywood sign. There were pictures of them on a beach in swim trunks and on surfboards.
I can surf.
Another vacation of them in Paris. He finally got to go to Paris. They were at the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, and at a café eating dinner. Luke's heart tugged slightly; he went to Paris and all he got was some pictures.
The next set of snapshots was of a camping trip. It looked like they were in a National Park, one with mountains. There were pictures of Noah sleeping in a tent, of Luke fishing, and one of the them both in front of a waterfall.
The last set looked more important. Luke noticed right away that there was something different about this set. They were wearing wedding rings. All of pictures were in a tropical climate with palm trees and flowered leis. They went to Hawaii on their honeymoon. Luke could see the smile on their faces. They looked so happy and in love. Luke slowly looked through these pictures. Most of them looked like first day pics; they both had rather pale skin. Luke was guessing that they got sight-seeing out of the way on the first couple days and then spent the rest of the time doing something else.
Luke had a sick feeling in his stomach. He knew that he was going to get uncomfortable looking at these pictures, but he needed to push past the uneasiness and keep going. He put the vacation album aside and decided he was going to wait to look at the wedding album. He didn't think he was ready to look at that one quite yet.
He pulled out the portable hard drive and plugged it into his laptop. He heard the little black box whirl to life and waited to access it. A small light blue window popped up in his screen and he froze.
PLEASE ENTER PASSWORD
Crap!
Luke then started to plug in what he thought it could be. His birthday; nope. His mom's birthday; no. His dad's, Natalie's, Faith's and Ethan's wasn' t it either. He groaned and then another window popped up.
NEED A HINT?
Luke clicked on the link and a single phrase appeared.
NOAH'S NICKNAME
Luke wanted to scream and then throw his laptop across the room. How the hell was he supposed to know that one? He dropped his head into his hands and wanted to cry. He was so close. He laced his fingers together and rested his chin. How was going to figure this out? He glanced into a box and something caught his eye. He saw a brushed sliver photo frame tucked into the far corner. Luke tugged it free and looked at it closer. It reminded him the photo he saw on his desk at Grimaldi. It was photo that someone took without Luke and Noah knowing about it. They were in the same suits that Luke recognized from the framed one in his office. They were standing alone just under the elm trees in front of Grandma Emma's house. Noah hands were resting on Luke's hips and Luke was fixing Noah's tie.
"Are you ready for this? Us, getting married," Noah's was a little unsure. Almost as if he was making sure that Luke wasn't having second thoughts.
"Are you kidding? I have been waiting for day this since you married Ameera. I cannot wait to be Mr. Luke Mayer. I love you so much. And lucky for you bubby the rest is just beginning,"
"I love you too. I cannot wait to be your husband," Noah lightly cupped Luke's cheek and…
Luke felt his stomach swirl a bit as the short memory left as quickly as it came. Luke thought that this was too easy, but he plugged in "bubby", the password prompt disappeared, and the windows explorer screen replaced it. Luke breathed a sigh of relief and begun to search the hard drive. There was a bunch of Grimaldi and Foundation files on it. There were some stories that Luke was sure were half-finished and hadn't been touched in years. There were folders full of pictures along with music and movie files. This looked more like a storage drive than anything else. He opened one more folder and saw hundreds of files, each with different dates. Luke double clicked on the first file and a word document opened.
Noah had been working for the last few hours and decided he needed some air. He hated to be away from Luke, but a tiny part of him was glad to be out of the house for a day. He loved Luke, that was never a question, but he was glad to by himself. But as soon as that thought entered his mind, he felt awful. Luke needed him and he was glad to be away from him for the day? Noah knew that it was wrong to feel that way, but he couldn't help it. He walked into Java and hoped that a little caffeine would take away his blues. He ordered his regular and stood at the counter, surveying the place. It looked the same, the only thing that changed was a kids that came in. They seemed to get younger and younger, or maybe he was just getting too old. He felt old. These last few weeks have really aged the young director. As he stood there waiting he let his mind drift. He actually thought about it, it had been 42 days.
42 days since Luke's stroke.
42 days since he last kissed Luke.
42 days since he last made love to Luke.
As Noah waited, he started to feel sorry for himself. He turned and saw Casey, sitting in a booth sipping his coffee. He smiled, took his now ready coffee and walked over to his friend. Casey looked up when he felt someone looking at him.
"Noah. What are you doing here? Is Luke with you?" Casey asked looking behind Noah.
"What do you mean? He's has therapy today, he's suppose to be with you today,"
"No, he has therapy tomorrow,"
"Right," Noah hesitated. "I guess I got the dates mixed up. I better get back to work," Noah said blankly and turned to leave. Casey watched Noah leave and then got a sinking feeling.
He just screwed up.
Big time.
Uh, Oh! Now Luke's done it!
Had a leave ya with a little bit of a cliffhanger!
Next time on A Life Adrift - The Boys share a moment.
Stay Tuned!
