A/N: Thank you very much for all of your great reviews. You guys deffidently let me know what you wanted and I'm going to try to incorporate everything you've asked with some of my (as one reviewer so awesomely put it) poetic vision I had for my ending. It's really great to get feedback and know that I'm going on the right track and to know that I'm taking this in a direction the readers would like to see it go. My main goal is to please you guys (becuase Yaoi fangirls scare me like that) and to end it with a bang.

We're closer to the ending than you might think... Enjoy!

Forgotten
Chapter 11: Praying for a Miracle

Time was running slower than slow, an endless expanse lay before him and behind him and it seemed to be dragging by slower and slower with every passing second. It was driving him mad, he would have loved nothing more than to scream, he wanted to break out, he needed a way out, to do anything but sit here and wait and pray for a miracle.

Breathe in, breathe out. He chanted mentally. Breathe and think and live for him, hope and pray and cry for him. If he comes back he's yours, if not… well, you could always follow close behind.

"Would you like to go home Eiri, maybe get a nap and some fresh clothes and some food?" Tohma asked quietly.

Eiri looked up groggily, blinking his eyes like a newborn thing brought into a strange and yet familiar world. "How long has it been?"

"Five hours."

Eiri shook his head and set it back in his hands. "It'll be over soon."

"Are you certain? You look ready to pass out."

"It's only seven," Eiri retorted without emotion.

"But it's been a long day," Tohma countered patiently. "Why don't we all go for a walk and get some food, stretch our legs, see the sunlight."

Hiroshi stared at his boss for a long moment. "What if something happens to Shuichi?"

"We won't go far, and the doctors have emergency contact information."

"No." Eiri replied firmly. "I'm not leaving him. I promised I'd be right here, right here if he needed me, so I'll stay here."

There was silence between the three men. "Alright, Eiri," Tohma finally relented. "If that's what you want. Mr. Nakano?"

"Yeah. He's in good hands." Hiro gave Eiri a pointed glance as he spoke.

They both stood and stretched their sore and stiff muscles, making muttered promises to bring Eiri back some food. He grunted noncommittally and continued to wallow in his reverie, wondering why a doctor hadn't come out to update them on the progress.

The two had been gone for perhaps half an hour when the news came.

A doctor, obviously coming straight from the operating room judging by the bloodstains on his smock and the gloves he was ripping from his hands as he walked, came to Eiri's side.

"Well?" Eiri asked, panic edging into his voice. He stared up at the doctor imploringly.

A smile from the wizened old face of the surgeon. "He's going to be okay."

Eiri collapsed against his chair, staring into space, uncomprehending of the next few minutes of his life. As the doctor began to explain the surgery and all of its minor details Tohma and Hiro returned with bags of food in their hands. They saw the doctor and froze, waiting for the news they hadn't yet heard.

"He's going to be okay." The doctor repeated. That's when it hit Eiri and he felt it in his bones, in his heart, in his very soul. Shuichi was alive, he was going to be okay, and life was going to move on again.

Eiri felt his heart stop, and something in his thought process connected with his lungs and he took a deep breath of air and cried out. Then the darkness came. He was gone.

"Eiri, Eiri wake up!"

Tohma's soft gloves were gently smacking his cheek. He groaned, feeling in one instant the pain of each and every one of his muscles in his body. He felt sucked dry of emotion.

"Wake up, it's over, it's okay!"

Another groan. Comprehension was coming slowly, slowly, and with widened eyes he sat up and gasped for air, whispering thank you, crying madly. The doctor was speaking behind him, giving out the details, listing off all points of the surgery. Eiri felt himself being hefted to his feet, unaware of the doctor's words. He didn't care what had happened, as long as Shuichi was safe now.

The hands that had pulled him to his feet now embraced him in a rough hug. Nakano was shaking against him, gasping the words "thank God" in a monotonous chant. Eiri threw his arms around the guitarist and shook as well, thumping Nakano's back with his hands.

"Mr. Yuki, would you like to see him?" The doctor asked politely. Still wheezing, Eiri pulled away from Hiro and nodded, wiping at his eyes furiously. The doctor led the way to a large private room. Shuichi lay sleeping, his head wrapped in a ridiculous amount of bandages. His eyes looked purplish and bruised like he hadn't sleep in weeks. The nurses were hooking up IV's to his arms, while one doctor stood next to the heart monitor and took meticulous notes.

"How long until we know about Shuichi's memory capacity?" Tohma inquired quietly.

"As soon as he wakes up, if he recognizes any one of you we'll know it's been at least a partial success. Finding out the full range of his regained memories will take quite a bit longer."

"Thank you." Both Hiro and Tohma said. The room slowly emptied until only Eiri and Hiroshi and Tohma remained. They gathered around the bed and waited for Shuichi's eyes to flutter open. Doctors and nurses came and went, checking and monitoring and taking notes. Eiri continuously stroked Shuichi's hand, never letting the soft flesh go even for a moment. The guitarist and his boss at the food they had left to buy, offering Eiri a portion they had retrieved for him. He picked at it and then pushed it aside, his appetite lost in his hay-wire emotions.

Time had gone back for him. The world was turning again. A feeling normalcy was coming back into his life, and if only Shuichi awoke and remembered… remembered everything.

The hours passed by just as slowly as before, but there was reason to them, purpose behind the waiting. Flickers of thoughts and memories came flashing up in front of Eiri's tired eyes, memories of their first meeting, memories of the year that had followed, his time spent in New York, his time spent locked in his study, the nights of sick mind games he and Shuichi would play, vying for control and sanity.

The screaming. The fighting. The sickening nightmares. The rough sex. The drinking and smoking and meds.

He swore it would end now.

There were times he felt like he was stuck in an endless cycle of pain and forgiveness and hate and passion and pain again. He bordered on the edge almost daily, ready to release himself to memories better left forgotten, ready to fall down and never get back up. His reason for living wasn't clear, though Shuichi had probably been his only tie to life without his realizing it.

Yes, he thought bitterly, It stops now. No more pain, no more.

The clock was ticking.

Certain scents were assailing him, scents of cigarettes and spicy body soap, alcohol and chocolate cake—the special one from that bakery—he could smell these things, he could taste them, he swore it. They were sweet and bitter on his tongue, filling him with thoughts, scrambled pictures, lost and found memories that all came at him from different angles and screamed for his full attention. His brain was pounding with the effort of sorting through them all.

Hazes came and went, fogging over his eyes, sharp moments of extreme clarity and awareness of his surroundings flooded his senses, but he was unable to respond to the words spoken, and unable to decipher the sounds. The darkness of his eyelids prevented further inspection, and almost as soon as he was aware of semi-consciousness, he was gone again, lost in a void of everything he was struggling to bring back from the depths of his memory.

Fight for it.

He wanted to fight for it, but what that 'it' consisted of, he was unsure.

The days passed by, the years followed, the decades trailing behind. He was fighting it for years, his whole life passing him by. He could feel it, the frailty in his bones and his muscles because of the lack of use. His jaw was so stiff it was like it was wired shut, his fingers so rigid they were like unbendable claws. He was wasting away, growing old in his bed, unfeeling, unseeing.

Shuichi felt and heard and fought through all of this, until, one day in the millions of years between his last memory and this period of darkness, he opened his eyes.

"…Yu…ki…?"

End-12