Gilbert woke up shivering.

The sheets surrounding his chilled body felt like ice. He pulled them up around himself, burying deeper into the comforter's depths, but it seemed to make no difference. He exhaled shakily and almost expected to see his breath create a thin cloud in the frigid morning air. Gilbert was no stranger to this feeling, as he got cold rather easily. Normally, on mornings such as this, he'd snuggle in close to Roderich and feel the heat from the other man's body warm him until he was able to shut his eyes and fall back asleep. But this morning, of course, his bed was empty. Roderich was sound asleep in the room they used to share, while Gilbert fought to make himself comfortable in the guest bedroom.

Rolling over, Gilbert peered at the clock and saw that it was time to get up for work. Reluctantly, he stood and let the covers fall away from his body. He shivered again, more intensely this time, and decided he'd put on a sweatshirt and some sweatpants to eat breakfast in before he dressed for work. But then, as he started toward the chest of drawers, he remembered that they would be mostly empty. Almost all of his clothing was still in the drawers and closet in the room he and Roderich had shared. He thought about slipping quietly into the room to look for his sweatshirt, but he didn't want to disturb the sleeping Austrian.

At work, everything seemed dull and tasteless. Today more than ever, he looked upon the cars he repaired with a kind of disdain. They were the machines that had ruined his life – that were still ruining his life. He worked to replace a timing belt, which was a relatively routine repair, but today it seemed to take forever. He constantly found himself getting distracted. Gilbert's thoughts wandered, always returning to Roderich.

"Gilbert! Aren't you done with that timing belt yet?"

The manager's voice interrupted Gilbert's reverie. He jumped and dropped the tool he was holding, which clattered noisily to the concrete floor. "Oh, not quite yet," he replied.

The man sighed. "You've replaced dozens of timing belts, Gilbert," he said. "You shouldn't be taking this long."

"Hey! Don't rush me!" Gilbert snapped, lifting crimson eyes from his work to glare at his manger.

"And don't you yell at me!"

Gilbert stood and stared his manager down. "You have been on my case ever since I got back," he said in a low, almost dangerous voice. "It's like you don't even appreciate me around here. You know what? I don't even fucking like working here! Do you think I wanted to end up here? You know what? I'm done. I can't do this any more. I fucking quit." Without another word, he turned on his heel and walked away, abandoning his half-finished repair. His manager stared after him, mouth hanging open slightly in shock.

When Gilbert arrived home, a few hours early, the unmistakable scent of baking wafted in the air. He walked into the kitchen and found Roderich pulling a cake from the oven. The Austrian looked up to glance at Gilbert. "Oh, hello," he said, offering the albino a small smile. "I made some cake. Would you like some once it cools off?"

"Sure, but…you're baking?" Gilbert said. His eyes swept the kitchen, but no cookbook was in sight. Roderich almost never baked from a cookbook unless he was trying something new; he had his favorite recipes entirely memorized.

"I've always loved baking," Roderich replied coolly, shrugging once he had set the cake on the counter. Gilbert smiled a little. Every time Roderich regained a little shard of his memory, Gilbert's hope was renewed. But it left him wondering why Roderich would recall such trivial things but could not remember his husband. "Wait, why are you home so early?" the Austrian said suddenly. "Don't you get off at four?"

Suddenly, Gilbert recognized the seriousness of what he had done. Now neither of them had a job. Roderich was still struggling to regain his skill at playing the piano and violin, so he could not yet return to the philharmonic orchestra. And now Gilbert had quit his job on a whim, walked out right in the middle of replacing a timing belt, without giving any notice whatsoever. "Oh, um…" he mumbled, lowering his gaze to the ground in shame. "I kind of…quit."

Roderich froze halfway to the set of kitchen drawers. He whipped around and narrowed his eyes at Gilbert. "You did what?" he said.

"I…I'm so sorry," Gilbert said quietly. "I didn't think…"

"Of course you didn't think," Roderich interrupted. "It's lucky my parents have money and will give me some if I ask. You are perhaps one of the most foolish men I have ever met, Gilbert. Do you realize what you could have done to us?"

Gilbert sighed heavily. "Yes, I realize that now," he said. "But, Roderich…I just couldn't take it anymore. I have to spend all day fixing cars. And it hurts, because cars are the things that hurt you so badly. And I just don't like it. And I kind of just…I don't know, snapped."

"You…oh…" Roderich's voice softened a bit. "It's because of me." A hint of sadness crept into his voice.

"It's not your fault," Gilbert said.

"Yes, but I can tell you're hurting because of me. And even though I still do not remember you, I don't want you to be upset." Roderich sliced into the cake. Little puffs of steam rose from inside it and swirled into the air. "Especially not on my account," he added after a moment of silence.

Gilbert allowed himself a small smile. Though he still ached to see a glimmer of recognition in those amethyst eyes, to hear Roderich say, "I love you" once more, at least the Austrian was trying to understand. It was but a whisper of the Roderich that Gilbert knew and loved, but it was a step in the right direction nonetheless.


When Gilbert ambled into the kitchen the next morning, he found Roderich already perched at the table, eating a slice of the cake he had made yesterday. Gilbert found himself chuckling as he ran a hand through his messy silver hair in an attempt to straighten it out a bit. Roderich's occasional habit of eating cake for breakfast had always amused him, mostly because he had not expected it. It seemed like such a childish thing to do for someone so stiff and formal. "Don't eat too much there, Specs," Gilbert teased.

Roderich halted with his fork halfway to his mouth. "And why would that be?" he said. "Are you criticizing my eating habits now?"

"Nope," Gilbert said. "But I could do that, too, if you really wanted me to."

"I think I'll pass on that one."

"I'm just…making dinner for us tonight," Gilbert said nonchalantly. "So be here around seven."

Roderich rolled his eyes at Gilbert and pushed a forkful of cake into his mouth before replying. "Where in the world would I go?" he said humorlessly.

Gilbert shrugged. "Piano-land?"

At this, Roderich at last set his fork down and twisted around in his seat to stare at Gilbert. He arched one eyebrow at the albino. "Piano-land? Really?" he echoed. "And what is that supposed to mean?"

"Oh, it just means that sometimes, you get so absorbed in playing that it's almost like I don't even exi- you know what? Never mind," Gilbert said as he turned around and headed for the refrigerator. "I'm getting breakfast."

Around four in the afternoon that day, Gilbert had been looking over a rumpled printed-out page from the Internet, studying the recipe over and over again, when he heard an energetic knock on the door. From the faint shadow of the figure standing outside, complete with its trademark curl, Gilbert knew it was Feliciano. Still carrying the smudged printout in his hand, he walked to the door and opened it to find a grinning Italian carrying armloads of grocery bags standing on his porch. "Guten abend, Gilbert!" Feliciano said, and then he giggled. "Ludwig taught me that. I love when you and Luddy teach me words in German! It's fun!"

Feliciano's infectious smile made the corners of Gilbert's mouth turn faintly upward. "Glad you think so! Guten abend, Feli, and thank you so much for agreeing to help me," he said.

"Oh, it's nothing!" Feliciano chirped. "I always love cooking for people!" The Italian's bright brown eyes slid to the page in Gilbert's hand. "You won't need a recipe, silly! I make osso buco almost every night at the restaurant!" He plucked the paper from Gilbert's hand and crumpled it in his fist in a way that was so sudden and almost abrupt that it made the albino chuckle.

When the two wandered through the entryway, past the room in which Roderich sat practicing the violin, Feliciano paused for a moment to study the Austrian's face, which was wrinkled in intense concentration, and to listen to the unbroken line of notes that rippled through the air. Roderich, having heard them enter, froze in motion with his bow still against the violin's strings. "Oh, hello, Feliciano," he said politely as he looked up at the two of them.

"That sounded really good!" Feliciano exclaimed.

"It was all right, I suppose," Roderich replied. A note of something like disappointment stirred in his voice. "But much better than it was two weeks ago. It's good to see you, Feli, but may I ask what you are doing here?"

Feliciano held up the bags of groceries he was carrying. "I'm helping Gilbert cook!"

"You mean you're helping to keep him from burning the house down," Roderich said. He and the Italian laughed together.

In the kitchen, Gilbert and Feliciano spread their ingredients out across the counter. "Do you want to start with the vegetables, Gil, and I'll work on the meat?" Feliciano said. Gilbert nodded and slowly started to chop vegetables, casting questioning glances at the Italian every so often to check if each slice he made looked right. Each time Feliciano felt the albino's eyes upon him, he turned and offered the other man a small nod before turning back to the veal that sat in oil in a Dutch oven on the stovetop. Feliciano looked almost as focused when he cooked as Roderich did when he played the piano. Gilbert was slightly jealous that both of them had found something they were truly passionate about, whereas he had accepted a job simply because it paid his bills. Roderich's violin music lilted in the background, providing a soundtrack to their cooking.

Looking up from the sizzling pan, Feliciano said in a low voice, "How have you been, Gilbert?"

"Shitty," Gilbert mumbled, the sound of his voice interrupted by his knife as it sliced through an onion.

"Of course you are!" Feliciano cried. "Stupid! I'm so stupid!"

"No, you were just trying to be nice," Gilbert replied. "I'm the one who's being stupid. You know, Feli, I just feel like I'm trying so hard to get him to remember me. I mean, like this evening, for example. I'm making him a fucking dinner. And I just feel like he's not even…" Gilbert trailed off. Feliciano had abandoned the wooden spoon he had been using to stir, and gazed at Gilbert with wide brown eyes, stunned into silence. "I'm sorry. I just…what if he never remembers me, Feli?"

Feliciano stared into the Dutch oven at the cooking meat. "I don't know, Gilbert," he said with a long sigh. "That would be really sad."

"Sometimes, I wish it could just be me and Ludwig again," Gilbert admitted. "You know, just so I could feel like I always had someone who'd take ca-" He halted mid-sentence to consider what he was saying. "Shit, no! That's not what I meant! Feliciano, I want you and Ludwig to be together. I'm glad you're together. I'm…I am so fucking sorry. I should just stop talking now."

For a split second, the look on Feliciano's face was slightly hurt. But then he grinned again as though the previous moment had simply not happened. "I knew what you meant!" he said in a voice that was brimming with an innocence that was almost child-like. "I only hope that things get better for you. And that this helps." Gilbert could only nod stiffly in response. It still baffled him that almost everyone in his life was kind and sympathetic, even when he snapped at them and treated them rudely. He had fully expected that at least a few of them would have abandoned him by now. As he sighed in a way that mixed admiration and hopelessness, Gilbert turned back to the vegetables he had been slicing.

In a few hours, dinner was finished. Feliciano hugged Gilbert good-bye and wished him luck. Gilbert set the osso buco with pappardelle pasta on the table, and then as he waited for Roderich to wander in the kitchen, he habitually reached out and straightened first the flower arrangement he'd put out on the table, and then the collar of his shirt. He had abandoned his usual t-shirt and jeans in favor of a crisp dress shirt and khakis. It wasn't the same shirt as he'd worn the night he'd proposed to Roderich, but he'd left that shirt in a hotel in Vienna by accident last winter. When Gilbert had come back to the United States and discovered the shirt was missing, he had been disappointed, perhaps even a little sad. Every time he wore the shirt, it reminded him that Roderich, who was so intelligent, talented, classy, and perfect compared to him, had actually said yes. Roderich had said he thought Gilbert's attachment to that shirt was cute.

At last, Roderich ambled into the kitchen, tilting his head back and forth to stretch out his neck after having practiced the violin for hours on end. His purple eyes swept the room, pausing first on the meal, which looked almost as though it had come straight out of a restaurant, and then on Gilbert. He raised both eyebrows and hummed lightly before he settled into his seat at the table. "I must say, I'm impressed," he said as he allowed a smile to sneak onto his lips. "This...this is really something, Gilbert."

"Well, I did have Feliciano's help," Gilbert said.

"And a good thing, too," Roderich said dryly as he ran his pointer finger around the rim of his wine glass.

"What is that supposed to mean, Princess?" Gilbert shot back, giggling at one of the many nicknames he'd chosen for Roderich over the years. This one was probably the Austrian's least favorite. "Don't you think I can cook?"

From the way Roderich furrowed his brows and wrinkled his nose, he still hated that little nickname just as much as he had before the accident. "Something is telling me that you can't," Roderich replied before cutting into the osso buco and taking a tentative bite.

Gilbert almost wanted to burst with joy. Did Roderich remember? It was true, of course. When he cooked, he somehow managed to dirty almost every pot and pan in the kitchen. He neglected to use measuring cups, instead guessing at portion sizes by sight, which was fine for a seasoned chef like Feliciano, but certainly not for Gilbert. And he almost always forgot to check to make sure he had all the necessary ingredients before he started cooking. Halfway through, Gilbert would discover he was missing an ingredient or two, and he'd have to make a hasty – and usually terrible – substitution. Not to mention the numerous times he'd burned food. He studied Roderich, trying to read his expression. Did the Austrian remember Gilbert's multiple cooking mishaps before he'd practically been banned from the kitchen? Or was he simply making a lucky guess? He held his breath, waiting, but Roderich said nothing else and continued eating.

"This is really good, Gilbert," the Austrian commented. "Though I suppose I should really be thanking Feliciano. I'll let him know the next time I see him."

The rest of the dinner continued in relative silence. The clink of forks and knives against the plates filled the emptiness. It was so different from the day Gilbert had proposed, which was almost a year and a half ago now. That day, they had never run out of things to say to each other. When they finished eating, they both had another slice of Roderich's cake from the previous day. Gilbert had almost finished his slice when he lifted his eyes from his plate and let them come to rest tentatively on Roderich. No glimmer of recognition alighted in those amethyst eyes. The albino cleared his throat. "Um, Roddy…would you…want to go for a walk? With me?"

"Why not?" Roderich said casually. Clearly, it wasn't as important to him as it was to Gilbert. "I suppose I could use some exercise. I have been spending a lot of time just sitting at the piano bench."

"I've noticed," Gilbert said. Without another word, they stood, put their plates in the dishwasher, and stepped out into the warm mid-May night air. Gilbert led the way to the park a few blocks away. He remembered that when he had proposed, he had scolded himself afterward. I should have taken Roderich out of the city, he remembered thinking at the time, to somewhere beautiful and open and natural. That would have been better. Why am I so un-romantic?

"Here it is," Gilbert said as he and Roderich halted in the middle of the park. In the clearing, a still lake mirrored the silvery beams of the moon, its glasslike surface undisturbed by passing breezes. "We walked here, and for a while, we just stood and stared at the moon." Gilbert tilted his crimson eyes upward. Though the city smog kept the stars from shimmering in the sky, but a glowing silvery dome was visible above the skyline, casting soft light down through the park. Roderich's eyes followed Gilbert's before they returned to the albino's face. "But then," Gilbert continued, "I got down on one knee and told you I loved you more than anything in the world. And I said I wanted to spend the rest of my life with you. And…and you said yes."

Gilbert smiled at the Austrian as he pictured that day in his mind, how rapidly his heart had thudded in chest as he had waited breathlessly for Roderich's response, terrified the word that fell from his lips would be "no." And he remembered how Roderich had looked in the moonlight. It looked very much the same tonight. The moonlight illuminated the lines of his face and shimmered across his purple eyes, making them look like little pools of light in the darkness. Gilbert wondered if his husband realized how entrancing, how lovely, how perfect he looked. He sighed and stared at the ground for a moment before letting his eyes wander back to the Austrian. "My hands were shaking when I put the ring on your finger," Gilbert said. "You said it was cute, how nervous I was. And then we kissed and…that's it." He intertwined his own fingers together because he knew Roderich would probably push him away if he tried to take the other man's hand. "Well, that's not really it, I guess. We went home and, you know, made love all night. But…yeah."

For a moment, Roderich did not respond. His face was still and motionless, betraying no emotions. One eyebrow furrowed slightly. Gilbert could see the wheels turning in his head. Without thinking, the albino reached out and took Roderich's hand. Then, he dropped the hand guiltily and looked away in the opposite direction. "I'm sorry," he said quietly and slowly. The Austrian did not respond. Instead, he took Gilbert's hand in his and gave it a gentle squeeze, the ghost of a smile playing upon his lips.

Gilbert's heart almost stopped. The press of Roderich's warm palm against his was something he'd missed for so long. He gazed breathlessly into purple eyes and inhaled shakily before he managed to stammer, "Roderich…does-does this mean…"

"Does this mean what?" Roderich asked. "I don't remember any of this, if that's what you're asking. You just seem so…tender right now, Gilbert. You can be sweet sometimes, I suppose. I can see that now. Perhaps that's why I fell in love with you once."

Instead of feeling happy at that little token of encouragement, all Gilbert felt was anger. He had planned this entire evening, labored over the most minute of details, tried to make it exactly as it was, and Roderich remembered nothing. "You don't remember anything, Roderich?" he echoed in a harsh tone of voice.

"No. I'm sorry, but I just can't."

Gilbert pushed Roderich's hand away. "Seriously? Seriously?" he almost yelled. "I did all of this for you! All of it! I even wasted Feli's entire fucking evening. Goddamn priss."

"Hey! It's not my fault!" Roderich yelled right back. "I can't make my mind do something it's not capable of! I wish I could! If life worked that way, we'd all be fucking rich and famous!"

"Are you even trying, though?" Gilbert probed. "Because I'm – wait. Just a second. If you don't remember this, I swear I will flip shit." He pulled his iPod out of his pocket, removed the earbuds and coiled them around his fingers, and selected the playlist he'd made for Roderich for when he'd been lying unresponsive in the hospital. He played the song the two of them had danced to at their wedding. Roderich leaned in close, placing his ear right next to the iPod as the song played. For a moment, he was silent and motionless. Then, he shook his head gravely.

Gilbert shook the iPod furiously in the Austrian's face. "Are you fucking serious? Why can't you remember the music? Why? Music is what you do! I just…" He paused for a moment and lowered his eyes in shame. "I just want you back," he said quietly.

"If you want me back, then why are you yelling at me for something I cannot control?" Roderich said coldly. "And look, now we have to walk home together." He made a disgusted face.

"No need," Gilbert shot back. "I'm going to the bar. I just need to fucking drink."

Gilbert watched Roderich storm off in the other direction, leaving him alone in the middle of the park.

Well, at least the sky was clear and cloudless tonight.


Okay, I'm really sorry it took so long to get this chapter out! I've had a rough couple of weeks at school. I hope it's all right!

I really hope I can get the next chapter out within a week, which is what I prefer to do.

As always, thanks for reading, and please review :)