A/N: Hey! Man, sorry about slow updating, I've been struggling slightly with this chapter, and State Testing for school is NOT fun. However, planning this story is! Hope you like!

July 13th

Unikitty's own blood chilled, and she shut her eyes; she shut out the world, Emmet, the room, the news, she shut everything out so it couldn't hurt her. "Emmet, Lucy…she…she doesn't…she doesn't remember you. She has, it's Dissociative Amnesia. She doe–"

"Huh?" Emmet's voice reminded Unikitty, in the moment, of what a child must sound like before going into surgery. "Lucy wouldn't forget me." He shook his head, almost smiling through trembling lips, as if he could dispute the fact. "She loves me, right? She wouldn't just forget I exist."

"It's not…it was the car crash." No, he would blame himself. She had to be honest with him. She had to tell him the absolute truth. "She remembers everything…except you, Emmet, we're going to fix this, like we always do!" Lies. She was lying and she knew it. How could she deceive him like that, how could she cruelly betray him by feeding him falsehoods, untrue hopes, and unrealistic optimism?

Her medicine would be his death.

Emmet said nothing.

How? Why? A day ago, five minutes ago, everything had been fine. Not a thing, not an emotion or fact, lived out of place. The world had lived at peace, the world had fallen in love, the world had danced around to piano music in the softness of night.

His girlfriend, the only one he had ever loved, had forgotten him. He could hope, of course. A brave, strong, optimistic boyfriend would sympathize with Lucy's situation, and feel hopeful. But he didn't have hope. He would not pound with cracked and bleeding hands on Mount Everest in hopes it would move.

Yet, he could not hate her. Oh, how he should have hated her. He should have hated her guts, hollered at Unikitty, screamed at her, cried at the doctors, and bawled for the day before. If he could stop loving her, stop caring, feeling, adoring her, would he?

"Emmet?" Unikitty could hear the grey, ashen loss of color in his face. His lips quivered, she could see him through clenched eyes how hard he trembled. She could feel his raspy, ghostly breath, and she smelled tears, the scent of smoke, like from the streets of the crash.

Out of the corner of his bloodshot, flame-infested eyes, he caught sight of Lucy's bag. How or why it was there, he knew not. Inside the pocket – the front pocket, where she usually kept small things – he saw two tickets. Two movie tickets, to a romantic comedy, Loved Beyond Reason. They were supposed to see it tonight.

"No." A silver shroud of mourning stole the color from his face; his ghostly, dead expression reached into Unikitty's throat and tugged on her heart.

"Huh?" Her voice, a clink of a fork against a wine glass, contrasted his cavernous, bellowing tone.

"I said no, Unikitty." His words pricked her skin. "You're lying. Lucy…Lucy loves me, she wouldn't just forget me. She wouldn't!" Bleached, frozen, detached death dissolved into hazardous anger. "Get out."

The metal bars of his bedframe cracked beneath his fists.

"Emmet, she's sick!" Unikitty tried to urge reason on the unreasonable, sense on the senseless, and hope of the hopeless. "We have to help her!" Where was her best friend? The one who would hug her, hold her, and comfort her in the dead of night when she cried over the silliest, most trivial issues and dilemmas?

"Get out." His voice choked her throat.

"Emmet, I'm only trying to–"

"I SAID GET OUT!"

Like a firecracker, he shattered her from his bedside. "JUST GO AWAY, LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Unikitty quivered, her weak legs trembled and sputtered with very step she took. "Emmet, you don't mea–"

"GO!"

His last comment was all her broken spirit could take, and she dashed out of the room like a gun shot at her.

Only then, as she slid down the outside of the door, did she realize how much he had resembled Rex; broken, alone, and afraid.

Warm tears spilled from her eyes, but she did not tremble, she did not quake, she didn't even breathe. She was hated. Her life, her friends, her family, crumbled around her and berated her for doing nothing wrong.

When her lungs finally broke through for air and her eyes for light, she spotted, on her leg, a small sticker. She peeled it off, and the message stabbed what remained of her heart. In bright, bold, vivid letters, she read, Best Friends Forever! It was from the previous day, when she, Emmet, and Lucy had been making scrapbooks.

She tore the sticker into shards and stomped it into the ground until her foot ached.

Like an angel, Dr. Kennedy's calm voice lifted Unikitty's spirits out of the hurricane. "Unikitty? Ah," There was a tint of realization in his soothing voice. "I supposed you told Emmet about Lucy. Well, and I wish I didn't have to tell you this, but it's official. I just spoke with Dr. Rhyan, Lucy has been diagnosed with Dissociative Amnesia."

Unikitty could not feel shock. There was no emotion, no fight, no life left in her, and she could not be hit any lower than she was.

"She is indifferent to her condition, that's how patients are with this disease. She will continue therapy, and in the meantime, just be supportive, and understand this is not her fault." Dr. Kennedy paused. "Unikitty?"

"I don't care anymore."

He sighed. "Would you like to see Lucy?"

"Fine."

Just as Dr. Kennedy stood up from Unikitty's side, Lucy's hesitant and somewhat careless voice rung out in their ears. "Uh, hey. I'm guessing I'm not very liked right about now."

Unikitty took a long, drawn-out, precious second before opening her eyes. Because, when she opened her eyes, it would be real. She would have to wake up, roll out of bed, and deal with her new, constant Monday-morning life, helpless to take a nap or even get a vacation. It would be over; her peace would be crushed.

"Unikitty? Are you alright?" Dr. Kennedy's voice sounded distant.

Unikitty opened her eyes, stood up, and wore the mask of bravery and deceit she had told herself she would never wear. "Yeah, I'm fine."

Nodding, Dr. Kennedy turned to Lucy. "Lucy, I'll let you talk to your friends and see Emmet. Remember, this isn't easy for him. Patience is key in this situation."

Yeah, patience, sure. Unikitty rolled her eyes and bit her lip. Sure, patience was what she needed, not a large hammer and a time machine.

"Ok," Lucy replied. Dr. Kennedy walked off, and Lucy wasted no time repairing things with the one friend she might still have. "Look, Unikitty, I'm sorry this happened. I just don't remember anything about Emmet."

It wasn't her fault, Unikitty reminded herself. "I know, Wyldstyle. We're still friends, right?" It seemed to be of great importance, Lucy noticed, that she acceptd Unikitty's continuation of friendship. After all, she had just had life ripped out from under her, and the least she could do was remind her that she still had her friend.

"Of course." Lucy smiled and gave Unikitty a small hug.

Unikitty sighed. Small bouts of goodness in her life kept her going. "Look, I think you should meet...say hi to Emmet. I told him everything, but you two should still talk."

As much as the idea repulsed her, Lucy accepted the proposition. "Sure, ok."

"Great. Let me talk to him first." Oh, yes, because seeing the very best friend who had just hollered at her was just what Unikitty wanted to do. She needed chocolate; lots and lots of chocolate.

Lucy nodded, and with another life-saving pause, Unikitty gently pressed the door open. "Em-Emmet?" Did he hate her? Did he blame her? Did he still love her, even on some small level? The fact that she didn't know the answers broke the last bit of Unikitty's spirit.

Emmet looked awful.

"Oh, he-hey, Unikitty." He swallowed through tears. "You don't hate me?" He sniffed and looked down towards his lap, like a boy picked last and left on the sidelines.

A soft smile on her lips, Unikitty shook her head. Something in her heart settled. Hearing the pitch, just hearing the inflection of his voice no longer dead or dangerous reminded her that not all was lost. She still had her best friends, and for that, she supposed, she should be grateful. "Of course not, I love you."

She wandered into the room, and only then did she see how life had tortured him in the last moments. His eyes, bloodshot like they had seen a murder, looked through her, not at her. He wore no color in his face beyond ghostly silver. He appeared to have just thrown up, for his voice muffled in his throat and he didn't seem to have the strength to lift his hand.

"Thanks," he chuckled, sorrow lifting his voice. "I'm sorry, Unikitty. I don't know what happened to me."

If there was one thing about Emmet that Unikitty loved, it was his kindness. Pure, unbroken, and untainted kindness, like a child. "Don't worry about it. I can't even imagine how you must be feeling."

"Dead." The blunt response swam through Unikitty's numb veins like blood.

She shook her head to clear away the splotches of tired, anxious color out of her vision. "Emmet, look, she's outside." Unikitty moved to his bedside, nudging her own tear-stained face into his arm as some sort of comfort. "Do you want to see her?"

Did he want to see her? Did he want his heart, already ripped out and thrown against cement, plucked apart, thread by thread? "Ok."

"Don't worry, Emmet. It will all work out. Maybe we can get her memory back!" There was a hope. Somewhere in the vast cosmos of sinister, murky sparseness, there was a star of light, and she would find it. She had to, if she was to go on.

Emmet chuckled, like one does when they entertain the idea that so clearly can never come true. "Yeah, maybe."

Unikitty gave him one last cuddle, then called out towards the door, "Lucy, you can come in."

Emmet refused preparation. If she knocked him out by pure presence alone, then so be it.

Hesitantly, almost fearfully, Lucy pushed the door open, and she eyed the man before her. He looked as if he was on the brink of death. She tried to move past the gaunt, weak illness before her and see the man she had supposedly fallen in love with. She imagined that, if he were well, he would be somewhat cute. While she did not regard him as her 'type', she could see his appeal, especially when he gave her a weak, half-hearted smile.

If he had nothing else to show for it, he had one heck of a smile.

"Uh, hi." Lucy's words sprinted through the air like a cocky, ambitious knight. Her eyes meandered over Emmet's battered and bruised form, but his corporeal scars hung in the background compared to his emotional condition; the bloodshot flame that engulfed his eyes, the lace of bleached, sickly silver that hung over his face like mask of mourning, and the fatal way his chest refused to rise and fall in a steady pattern. It was not her fault, she had done nothing wrong, she reminded herself, like one prays before a beaten animal with its back arched in the air and teeth snarled.

"I'll leave you two alone," Unikitty said quickly. She rushed out the room, the thought of crying again, in front of her friends, disgusted her.

Emmet stared back at the hollow ghost of what life had once gifted him. He stared at the past years, the memories, the dates, the fights, the hugs, the apologies, the gifts, the love. He stared his past life as it regarded him uncomfortably, like the stranger he was. "Hi. I guess…I guess Unikitty…she told you who I am." His voice quivered in his throat as if it existed as a separate entity.

The bitter, cruel air nipped at her arms as it rushed through the vents. "Yeah, she did. Emmet, I'm sorry." She tossed the apology in his direction like a student forced to ask forgiveness, bent by the will of the teacher.

The lump in his throat persisted, knocking, kicking, and beating on him. "I-It's not yo-your fault. I'm just glad that you're ok." The truth, the terrible, selfless, loving truth bit him and gnawed at his skin. Even as she stood there, officious and careless, he could not bring himself to harbor any ill-feeling toward her. He could not tell her how death felt, he could not tell her what it was like to mourn, he could not explain how it felt to have your heart quit beating for minutes at a time. He would not, could not, hurt her.

"Look, Emmet, I just want you to know, that we can be friends." He understood the hidden meaning behind her tone, and for the warning, he was grateful. "One, we're not dating. Two, you can't call me Lucy, and three, you're moving out."

That was all fine. He could live with it. When his mind, body, and spirit were numb, nothing meant anything to him. "That's fine." He cut his breath short in his throat.

"Ok, well, I'll see you." Lucy gave a small wave, and awkward intimacy slapped her in the back of the head.

He did not respond, and she walked out the door.

In his mind, in every respect, from every angle, to him, she was all but dead.