Chapter 11

After all that waiting and pacing through Rawan's tiny apartment, the phone signal was a relief, but also the most frightening thing since... well, it wasn't like he had all that many frightening things to choose from. He picked it up, swallowing hard. "Hello?"

"Hi, it's me," said Qais, sounding noticeably cheerful. "We're on the way over with your brother. Do you want to talk to him?"

"Yes," he answered before Qais had even finished speaking. "Yes, yes, I... yes."

"Nathan?"

Oh dear sweet mother of God, he knew that voice. "Peter?"

A pause, then, "Yeah. I thought you didn't remember me."

"Rim told me your name. I looked it up on Goggle." He was babbling, but there was no way to get out the words he actually needed to say. Half of it wasn't words anyway, and he ached for them all to just get there already.

"It's called Google."

"Google. Right. I looked myself up too."

"Self-googling is a form of masturbation," Peter said, and despite the dry words there was a softness to his voice.

"Is it now? The things you learn." He drew a shaky breath. "Peter?"

"Yeah?"

"There wasn't a picture of you. I didn't look very hard, my eyes have been acting up all day, but I couldn't find one. Tell me, do you have these ridiculous long bangs that fall into your face?"

"Yes. You always hated them."

"They look stupid, you know. Your eyes, they're light brown?"

"Yeah."

"And your mouth, does it..."

"Yes, it does. You do remember!"

"I've seen your face, quite a bit. Heidi's too, sometimes. Yours is clearer. I can't see the boys. I know I have them, I get flashes of children, but I can't see their faces."

Peter's voice was husky when at long last he replied to that: "I've got a photo in my wallet."

"Thank you." He couldn't keep the tears away from his eyes anymore, and his throat hurt, but silence wasn't an option. He held the phone tight to his ear, speaking of nothing and everything, asking questions that helped him piece the puzzle together. Not the one from the articles, about elections and law firms and public figures. The real puzzle.

He was still on the phone when the doorbell rang, and he went to open, taking the phone off his ear only when he could see the people standing on the other side.

Seeing that face right in front of him, his first thought was how very realistic it was, better, more alive than ever in his memories. Then the actual reality of it all kicked in, and he pulled Peter close, hugging him, running his fingers through that overlong hair.

"Oh, God. Oh, God."

Peter's hold on him was just as tight. "It's really you."

He had to laugh. "Tell me about it."

Out of the corner of his eye, he vaguely saw the Mansour kids shutting the door behind them, but that was of absolutely no importance right now. He lifted his hand up to Peter's face, touching it tentatively. Perhaps it was their proximity, or just having his brother around again, but once again, he got the memory of sharp pain in his hand, so strong that he pulled away, wincing.

"You bit me!"

Peter blinked. His expression changed, first to sheer joy, then to joy mixed with irritation. "What else could I do? You wouldn't let go!"

"You were about to explode, Pete. You think I was just gonna ditch you there? In the middle of the ocean?" His voice was getting increasingly louder, and Peter replied in kind.

"I can survive an explosion, you can't!"

"Apparently I can!"

"You couldn't know that!"

"I had a pretty good hunch! Nothing touches me at that speed."

Peter blinked. "That was Noah's theory too."

"Who's Noah?"

"Oh. Right. He's Claire's dad – Adoptive dad, I mean. He came here with me."

"Who's Claire?" he asked, annoyed to have the conversation derailed to a point at which he was relegated to asking random questions about his own life.

Peter looked so mortified that for a moment he wondered if he'd wounded him horribly somehow – and then he clued in. Because he'd had that flash of memory, Peter had clearly thought that he was cured, all at once, like pulling the plug in a bathtub.

"She's your daughter."

Daughter? That wasn't possible. His only memories were of sons, boys. Sometimes one, sometimes two, but always boys. Was it really possible for a child to be entirely wiped out from his memory? Anyway, the article had only mentioned sons. Surely if he'd had a daughter, she would have been mentioned? The words about "adopted" sank in. He'd given a child up for adoption? According to every source he'd seen, he was loaded. Why would he need to do that?

"I don't have a daughter," he said, and it sounded a lot more like a question than he wanted it to.

Peter nodded slowly and opened his jacket. "You do, actually. Out of wedlock."

There was a snort from Qais, and for the first time he became aware that the Mansours were still listening. "Don't you even start," he warned Qais. His gaze involuntarily slid over to Aisha. It struck him that perhaps it was in poor taste to bring the woman he had tried to seduce to the home of the woman he'd actually slept with. Not to mention all this talk about children out of wedlock.

Peter took a picture from his wallet and handed it over to him. He stared at it, trying to see something familiar in the vivacious young face. Perhaps something in the smile, and around the eyes, but that was it. He should feel something – scrap that, he should feel a whole lot of something – but he didn't. Just an immense sadness.

"She's beautiful," he said.

"She's my age," Rim said, leaning over his shoulder.

He handed over the picture to her, partly relieved to see it go, so it could no longer make demands he couldn't live up to, but also a bit scared. Would he lose that face again, now that it was out of his sight?

Peter handed the rest of the photos over in silence. An aging family photo showing himself at twenty-something along with Peter as a boy and an older couple – his parents? His mother's face looked familiar (and it certainly fit the voice he had sometimes heard in his memories), while his father's only evoked the memory of a tall back clad in a grey suit.

Next came the boys, playing together on the lawn, with Heidi laughing behind them. The sight of her laughter startled him. Her face was lighter, wider, and those blue eyes nothing like Aisha's big dark ones, but the laughter still gave the two of them a similarity that made him extra reluctant to finally hand the photo over.

Maybe his reluctance in itself made Qais suspicious; in any case, when the photo reached him he looked at it for a while and then flipped it over, asking, "Can I start about this?"

"I'd really rather you didn't."

Qais looked at him long and hard, and then simply nodded. "Okay."

"That's it?" he asked dubiously. "Okay?"

"Yes. Okay. No problem."

"What's going on?" Peter asked.

"Nothing."

"Don't lie to me, Nathan."

Something about that tone made his head whip around, and he looked at his kid brother with extra suspicion, then over to Qais, and then back again. He could be imagining things. He really hoped he was imagining things, considering the alternative. "Peter, what exactly is it you do?"

"What do you mean?"

"I saw you explode, but there's more to it than that, isn't there?"

"He went invisible before," Rim pointed out, which caused a startled outcry from her sister.

His eyes were still fixed on Peter's face. "Invisible. Huh. What else?"

Peter shrugged. "You might say I do everything else. I mimic other people's powers."

"Terrific." Somehow he got the feeling that even though Peter was his brother, he'd be just as annoying as Qais about the trust issue.

His head was starting to swim, and he rubbed his forehead, trying to clear his thoughts.

"Are you okay?" Peter asked.

"I'm fine."

"No you're not." Both Qais and Peter spoke at once, which only confirmed his suspicions.

"As if one of you weren't enough," he muttered.

Peter put one hand on his shoulder and lifted his chin with the other one. "You said your eyes had been acting up."

"They're fine now."

"Do they trouble you often?"

He shook his head. "Just today."

"He gets dizzy," Rim said. "I've seen him."

"A couple of dizzy spells," he snapped, brushing Peter's hand off his face. "It doesn't mean anything."

"It could mean any number of things." Peter stubbornly tried to hold his face still to look into his eyes. "Have you seen a doctor at all, about the amnesia?"

"Once. Will you cut it out?"

"No. What did he say?"

"She said it could be psychological or physical and she just didn't know."

"She didn't do a CT scan?"

"In case you haven't noticed, Peter, I'm an illegal alien, I've got a gripe with the mob, and I can fly. That kind of limits my choice of doctors."

"Where's your coat?"

"What?"

"You're going to need your coat, it's freezing outside."

"Pete, didn't you hear a word I said?"

"Yeah, and I don't care. You could have brain damage."

"What, are you a doctor or something?"

"Nurse, actually."

A nurse? That fit just a little bit too well with all the mother hen action going on. Everything he said still stood, not to mention that he had promised not to leave until Rawan came home, but there was nothing in Peter's face that suggested he was open to arguments.

Finally, he just sighed and picked up his shoes, unlacing them. "Fine. Aisha, Qais, if anyone asks, you guys are our cousins. Rim, you stay here."

"What? Why?"

"I don't have a key, so someone's got to stay. Peter's a nurse, Aisha's... whatever, she's got experience with memory loss, and Qais can tell me if there's anything fishy going on." Rim made a wry face, and he cut her off. "Don't argue. Just do it. Please."

Qais made a soothing comment to his sister, and he actually understood enough of it to give a half-smile. Probably just as well that Peter didn't seem to speak any Swedish. From what he could tell, the gist of the sentiment was that by the time Rawan got home and Rim could join them at the hospital, they wouldn't even have reached the front of the emergency line.