This took so long, I'm sorry. The truth is this chapter didn't get saved the first time I wrote it and I was so frustrated that it took me a long while to get back to it and be able to write anything without wanting to throw my laptop across the room. Hopefully, this was worth the wait. Sorry it's a bit on the short side, but I just need to get Robert's feeling out there :D

I just want to quickly thank my fandom mommy, Latifraise for her encouragements. Also, my wifey Emma who's just been the nicest, most patient person in the planet.

Enjoy my gorgeous sailors!


Chapter Two

When the light is burning low

It's a distinctive kind of heartbreak to know that his wife can no longer remember him, their love, can no longer remember spending a part of her life with him. He is nothing, no one, but a stranger to her. In a different circumstance, she might pass him by and not realize that they love each other, that she is his wife.

He will be just another face in the sea of people to her.

He cannot possibly fathom how he is supposed to live like this…cannot possibly be expected to live like this, because what if she never remembers, what then? What if she decides that along the loss of her memory, she's had a change of heart as well? And what if what they had before isn't enough?

He feels bile rise up to his throat and if he had eaten anything that day, he might even feel sick, might even vomit. The thoughts that are running in his head are of no help to his current state and he can't help but clench his fists and punch the wall before him repeatedly, until he is tired and his knuckles are sufficiently bruised.

"Robert?" he hears her sister's voice from behind him, merely a whisper but loud enough to echo in his head. She's finally made it to his side, finding him in the back alley of the hospital building where he is currently bent over, his hands still balled into fists and leaning against the wall for support. He can hardly support himself enough to stand straight. He is tired, so goddamned tired. And he feels exposed, even as the back alley provides enough privacy for him to conceal his emotions. The moon's silvery glow barely filters through the miniscule space, the light streams through in glimpses.

He should have known Ros would come and find him.

"Robert, are you alright?" Ros asks unnecessarily as she places her hand warm against his shoulder, soothing, rubbing up and down, back and forth.

He bites down a retort of do I look alright to you, instead he clamps his mouth shut and jerks a nod, not at all willing to trust his voice at the moment, until he calms down considerably, at least.

But he knows he cannot calm down, not when things are like this, and the fury he feels consumes him, it is dark and destructive and god, he wants to hurt someone, something, throw things, punch the wall repeatedly again, until his knuckles bleed and his legs give out. His hand is already smarting like a bitch as it is, he feels he might have broken it, his skin has a blotch of red blood, but he doesn't care, only wants to have another go at the unsuspecting wall in front of him. He can't care less if he breaks his bone trying.

It doesn't match the pain of his heart braking anyway.

"Robert?" his sister repeats, clearly afraid now because of his lack of response.

He grunts, some sort of reply, the only one he could make at this time, and turns his head away so Rosamund won't see the tears that trickle down his cheeks.

No, he isn't okay. And no, he can't be.

(…)

Back inside the hospital room, Cora experiences a heartbreak of her own. Different from her alleged husband's, if his face as the events had unfolded and before he'd walked out of her hospital room was any indication. It is quite different, she'd say, but her heart break is true, regardless, and she barely suppresses the tears in her eyes because no, no, no matter how frustrated she feels, tears are no solution.

It won't help to cry.

"I'm sorry baby," Martha Levinson whispers against her daughter's temple as Cora remains in her embrace. Cora is trembling, yet her stance is rigid and tensed, as she suppresses the tears and the rage swirling inside her.

But the endearment that falls from her mother's lips brings back memories of the years passed, and the damn breaks, Cora lets out a sob and her tears fall down finally, unchecked and in full force. She feels her mother's hand travel up and down her back, trying to soothe her, making her feel as though she were a child, making her wish she was one, and god, if there is ever a time that she feels her mother t he most, it is now. Right in this moment when she is confused and lost and six years, six long years, of her life (in which she had apparently fallen in love and had gotten married) had been so suddenly and so unjustly erased from her memories. They are lost to her now.

She tries so hard to remember, tries to dig around the crevices of her minds for memories that she doesn't know she even had, for the life she doesn't even remember living, for any recollection of the man whose face has crumpled in pain when she'd delivered the blow and told him she doesn't even know him when she is supposed to be married to him. But she comes up nil, comes up with nothing but a headache, she really can't remember, and it's as if there is a wall blocking her memories and she cannot go around it.

"It's going to be fine, Cor," her mother says, but Cora doubts it.

It really doesn't feel like it's going to be fine.

(…)

He is not okay. And hell, this is hell.

Robert doesn't know what to do. As much as he wants to hold Cora, he can't really go back to her room and face her, not like this. Not when she can't remember him and he is grieving, grieving the life he used to have that he is not even sure he can get back to.

And sure, he feels like he is dramatizing everything right this moment, but the hopelessness that has settled in his chest is hard to drive away. The events of the night has completely turned his life around.

Rosamund tags along with him when he goes back to the home he shares with Cora in Holland Park. She'd been the one to choose to live there, saying it's close to everything, that she can easily to convent garden and to her office complex, and he to his, and he realizes how everything has always been about her, and she doesn't even know, doesn't even remember that.

The night is chilly, and he pulls on his coat tighter around his body as he walks from his driveway to the door. He can almost feel Rosamund's irritation building, because he isn't like this, never the one to wallow in self pity, but that is exactly what he wants to do. He wants to snap at her, and does, tells her to go away and then turns on his heels. He knows she's only looking out for him as a sister might, only wants to make sure he's alright and that he won't do anything rascal or foolish, but he honestly just wants to be alone right now. He can't stand the company, doesn't want it…wants to just drown himself in alcohol until his heart is numb and the pain is dull.

He walks inside the house, failing to switch the lights as he goes, but Rosamund does that for him.

"Robert, I know she doesn't remember you, but you can't just give up hope," she says as they enter the house, flipping switch as they go. But the house is huge and cold, and the empty silence echoes off the halls loudly, louder and louder, making him hurt more.

God, it fucking hurts.

He clenches his fist at his sides (and god does it hurt to do that, but he doesn't bother with pain), and only goes straight to the kitchen, to the pantry where the liquor cabinet is, his eyes scaling for the strongest drink they have there. He reaches for it, pours himself a glass and downs it in one gulp, ignores the pointed sound and look that Rosamund throws at him.

"Easy for you to say," he finally snipes at her, his patience all worn out. He doesn't remember asking for her company so she can bloody well sod off. He only wants whisky…or anything that's strong enough to knock him out. And solitude…he wants solitude so he can bask in his pain uninterrupted. "I don't see your husband losing his memories, do you?"

Rosamund sighs and throws him a reproachful look, one that she takes back as quickly as it comes, settling in compassion…or is that pity? She reaches out to place her hand on his wrist when he lifts his third glass of hard liquor in less than five minutes.

"This," she says and she takes the glass from him and settles it down on the surface, "won't solve anything."

He scoffs, snatching it back and gulping down the content before Rosamund could take it back. "Neither does crying or praying or even punching walls," he retorts. He pours another glass full. "This at least numbs the pain enough till I black out."

"Robert," Rosamund begins and the look that she gives him is the look he never ever wants directed to him. He doesn't want or need pity.

"What would you have me do Ros?" he asks as his hand, already balled into fists, clench tighter, while the other grips the glass harder. "She doesn't remember me. She doesn't know getting to know me, or falling in love with me, she doesn't remember being in love with me. How am I supposed to…what am I supposed to do?" He feels desperate, feels like the world is closing in around him, because he truly doesn't know what to do.

"She fell in love with you once," Rosamund reminds him and though the words are a balm to his aching heart, it still hurts because she is his wife, and they were once in love, and he still is, and she is supposed to still be, too. It aches deeply somewhere in his chest, he just doesn't know what to do. "You can make her fall in love with you again."

But what if he can't?

He offers her no reply, only shakes his head and asks his sister to please leave, he won't do anything crazy, but he needs to be alone. He needs to be alone with the bottle of liquor. Rosamund eyes him doubtfully, but in the end she agrees, telling him to call for anything. He agrees. But truly, he doesn't know what else to do and to be quite honest, he's too tired to think of it now.

Maybe, tomorrow would bring in a better news, though he highly doubts it. Still, he supposes, one more night can't hurt.

(*)

Everything hurts. Everything hurts and he feels like dying. The pain creeps up onto his veins, fraying around the edges of his heart and threatening to take the little organ at the seams until explodes from too much pain, too much hurting. He's never believed that heartbreaks can be felt physically, but that theory has evidence now as he feels his heart clench and unclench inside his chest from the thoughts that gnaw at his brain, eating him alive.

He tortures himself with the images of his wife moving on from him and completely refusing to remember the live she used to have, content to lead a new one that does not include him…a future that she won't share with him.

The thought brings tears in his eyes anew and he swirls the amber liquid around his glass with a renewed ache in his chest. He doesn't even know how many glasses he's downed, or how many bottles he's gone through…all he knows that he isn't done until he is incoherent and unaware, passed out drunk without a single thought of tonight's events. It almost makes him wish that he's the one with amnesia, after that.

God, the thought of living a life without her in it is suffocating, is grey and dull, and unimaginable.

He imagines it would be like living in a world with no sound and no music, no good things, and only a blur of images as he passes life by. He imagines it would be dull and wrong, it's like having love unjustly ripped out of the world and it's chaotic and unsatisfying.

It's like living in a world where everyone else sees the vibrancy of colors, the fiery red and the icy blue, the lush green and the cheerful yellow, while he only sees grey and black and shades of white. It would be like having everyone else see the sun and he is thrust in the constant darkness.

It's like not having anything, because she is his everything.

Cora sleeps through the night in her mother's arms, though her sleep is nothing but restless. She tosses and turns in bed, trying to go around the blockages in her brain and remember what memory she'd lost (it is a lot, she thinks, to lose six years worth of memories, and it hurts her to think that there had obviously been so many things that have happened, so many beautiful things, but she cannot remember them). She doesn't remember falling in love with the man that her mother said she, herself, had thought so great.

Her sleep is not plagued with the dreams she'd been expecting to have, but still, she doesn't sleep well, can't sleep well. And it's really late when she finally drifts off to sleep, her mind finally shutting down.

Still, she doesn't rest. She can't rest.

(…)

Pounding.

There is a loud thumping in his head, like a marching band has taken residence in his head, like there is a hammering and nailing happening in his brain. And pissed, he feels pissed, hammered, his head feels heavy and he feels like everything in his stomach (his stomach included)is going to go up and out of his mouth.

He tries to acclimatize with his surrounding, tries to remember where he's ended up last night, if he'd even made it to the bedroom at all. He tries to remember what exactly had gone on last night, but last he remembers doing is going through bottles and bottles of scotch, without paying heed to how many he's downed already.

He sighs.

He rolls over on his side, tries to reach anything that he could brace himself on to, but he is met with empty space. It isn't the soft Egyptian cotton of their bed, but the Persian rug of the living room, he's sure of it, and he tries to open his eyes, tries to be awake enough to…well, do things other than be miserable and hangover, he supposes.

Slowly, he blinks, once, twice, until his eyes open and the sunlight streaming through the windows (he's forgotten to draw them close the night before and now he pays the consequences of it), the bright light filtering through his vision, only adding up to the headache that has already crept through the edges of his mind. He feels nauseated, and he groans, trying to reign in the bile that's risen up to his throat.

He moves his outstretched hand, his shoulder blades already protesting (god, it's not like he doesn't already feel so pathetic), and hits the table. He groans in pain, taking his hand back and nursing it against his chest blearily.

What a fucked up start to his day, already. He supposes it's safe to say that he isn't looking forward to the hours that would follow.

Grunting once more, he tries to push himself off of the carpet. He's not really keen on going anywhere with this monstrous headache, but he's decided that if he wants to win his wife back, make her remember and make her fall in love with him once more, then he's going to work for it, it won't happen overnight, but it won't happen at all if he wallows in self pity and do nothing.

Rosamund is right: he's done it once, he can do it again.

With that thought in mind, he makes his way to the bedroom and takes a quick shower, just enough to make him feel human again, decent enough to show himself to his wife—decent enough that she might find him appealing, anyway.

(*)

The drive to the hospital is uneventful, the traffic on a Saturday morning not much of a problem (it is, of course it is, traffic in London is always a problem to him, but it's a Saturday and this has become the norm, and it really should not faze him anymore). The sun is out, and it's a wonderful chilly day that he decides to put the top down of his Bentley, thinking that it might help his hangover. He's feeling better now, after two Advils and two cups of coffee (something that his wife has influenced him on, he's always liked coffee, granted, but he's become addicted since being with Cora—she's crazy about those stuff), and the chilly air sweeping his hair back helps as well.

He thinks of the things he can say to her when he gets there, thinks of the promises he can make: that he's staying beside her through this, that he's willing to wait, that they can find a way for her to remember, and that even if she doesn't, can't remember, then they can always make new memories.

In the end, all he wants to say is that he loves her, and that her loss of memory won't make him stop loving her.

For the first time since last night, he smiles, his heart feels light with the thought…with the hope that things would get better even when it doesn't feel so right at the moment.

He slows down when the hospital building comes to view, and he finds a space for parking. He makes his way inside, a bit of pep now present in his step. It's a brilliant morning after all, and maybe holding on to hope that things would get better will help.

Don't they say that positive outlooks also have positive outcomes?

He makes his way to the room, finding Martha just about to leave to get some coffee. He gives her a smile as he reaches out to squeeze his arm, there are no words spoken between them, they already understand, and she nods at him once, letting him know that he isn't alone in this. He thanks his mother in law, and tells her to go ahead, he'd sit with Cora.

She is still asleep, he finds, when he comes in. Her face contorted in her sleep, her lips pursed, but her breathing is even and calmed. He sits down on her bedside, taking her hand in his and rubbing the soft skin of her palm.

She is beautiful, extremely so, and it's the first thought he's had the first time he'd seen her before. Her blue eyes are really the window to her soul, and she is never scared to show her emotions, never afraid to wear her heart on her sleeves—she doesn't think that it's weak to do that (Mama says it's because she is American, but Robert says that it's because she is Cora, and that's just who she is, what makes her beautiful in his eyes).

He loves her, loves her so that it almost hurts, and he cannot wait to get back to the way they were before, with their memories between them (and he is fully aware that she might not regain her memories, but still he holds out hope, and even if she doesn't well, there are enough years to make new ones).

He pulls his hand back when he notices her start to stir, his eyes training only on her waking form. Her longs lashes start to flutter, her eyes blinking, and then she's awake, her eyes opening, the vibrant blue finally making their appearance.

She is quiet as a mouse, only groans from what he imagines is pain, before she turns her head side to side. She seems to be trying to remember where she is, and he waits her out, gives her a moment to settle before he would speak. He doesn't want to startle her.

But then, her eyes find him, and they grow big, rounding like saucers. A gasp comes out from her lips and she scoots back as though thoroughly surprised by his presence. He understands, the way he's left last night leaves a lot of doubt over his return, but still, he tries to calm her.

"Cora," he begins, his voice soft and soothing. He looks at her straight in the eyes however, even when his heart breaks in so many pieces at the sight of his wife seemingly trying to get as far away from his as possible.

There are so many ways in which this scenario can turn to, so many ways in which this could unfold, and he anticipates every single one of them, or so he thinks. But he doesn't anticipate what happens next, it doesn't even hit him fully until her words ring in his ears, echoing again and again.

"Who are you?" is all she says, and it is enough, enough to break him apart once more.

Three simple words, and his heart shatters once more.

Three simple words and all the hope he's gathered over the last few hours is snuffed out and extinguished.

And he thinks that no, no, what the hell is happening?


A/N: I will explain Cora's condition as thoroughly as I can in the next chapter, I promise. So please, nobody hate me. I love Cobert, I swear I do. Thanks for reading. Prepare for the next chapter? Let me hear your thoughts! (Good, bad, meh, I'd like to know!)