The Man Who Forgot

There was noise... Beep, beep, beep.

It was difficult to open his eyes, but he did despite not knowing why. He didn't think about it. He just did it.

Closing them rapidly, he couldn't keep them open.

It was more comfortable not to.

A voice, someone was asking him to open his eyes again.

Obeying, he didn't know who they were or why they wanted him to open his eyes, but their request still drove him to put forth the effort.

This time there was a hand shielding him from the light so that he could adjust to the brightness surrounding him.

Once he was able, he looked beyond the hand to the face it belonged.

She was beautiful!

Her clothes were rumpled and her dark hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail but a soft smile spread across her face. However, it was her blue eyes that captivated him. They were red-rimmed and a little bloodshot, but there was something about them, something that told him that she was someone special.

"Are you an angel?" The words must have slipped out of his mouth because her smile got brighter before she leaned in to kiss his forehead.

"I'm your angel, Hon," She settled back and was stroking her fingers back and forth across his hand.

"My angel?" How was she his? This beautiful angel couldn't possibly belong to anyone.

"Peter?" Her smile fell and her expression creased as she looked at him. "Do you remember who I am?"

Shaking his head, he looked at this beautiful woman and wondered why she was worried about him. "Who is Peter?"

Beginning to cry, the woman lifted something on the side of his bed and pressed a button. Then she resumed running her fingers along the back of his hand.

"Don't worry; everything is going to be alright." Her voice shook and it wasn't long before she needed to use a tissue.

Distressed, he couldn't watch this angel cry.

Someone so beautiful shouldn't be sad and he felt guilty that it appeared to be his fault. He didn't know who she was or what he'd done to cause this, but he needed to do something. "I'm sorry," the words sprang unbiddenly, but they felt right like that was what he needed to say.

Crying harder, the woman wasn't able to speak at first, but then she fought through a few attempts before she managed to get the words out, "It's alright, everything is going to be okay."

It wasn't okay, she was still crying. Was she trying to comfort him or herself?

Then people entered the room dressed in colorful clothes and ushered the beautiful woman out.

As she left, the woman told the new people, "He doesn't remember... Peter doesn't remember who he is or who I am." Then with a last teary-eyed look at him, she left the room and was lost to his sight.

Turning his focus to these new people, he watched them as they checked the various things attached to his body and some of them asked him questions.

There was too much going on, too many people, too many questions and he didn't know the answer to a single one of them, and it made him yearn for the peaceful darkness again.

But he remembered the beautiful angel and he wanted to see her again so he did his best.

Eventually, the room cleared out and he was left alone.

Watching the door, he hoped that the angel would return.

The knob turned, the door swung open, and to his relief, the angel returned.

This time she wasn't alone though, she brought another with her.

Following her into the room was a man.

He had dark hair, there was scruff along his chin, and he was smiling softly as well. As he got closer, it was possible to see that the man had dark shadows spread underneath his eyes that were also bloodshot in contrast to the bright blue.

This man was different, but he was also someone, however, he wasn't an angel, he was something else. What though?

"Who are you?" A rough voice asked and he realized that it was his own. Was this how he normally sounded, or just a result of whatever had happened to him?

"This is Neal; he's your consultant at work." The angel said, but she had an edge to her voice as she gestured to the man.

"Do you remember what happened?" Neal asked as he moved to the foot of the bed.

Looking at the angel as she stood by his side and held his hand, he was more focused on her than on the stranger by his feet. "No," he didn't want to talk; he wanted to drink her in. Her looks, the feel of her hand in his. He wondered why she was paying so much attention to him.

"We were working a case against one of my enemies when they got the drop on you. They hit you in the head knocking you unconscious before shoving you off of a platform and you got another head injury when you landed on the pavement below." The stranger was poking his fingers into the mattress and he had his head ducked when he looked at the man.

Feeling a frown, he continued to look at the man and thought this was why the angel wasn't happy with him. It was his fault that he was hurt, that he was here, that he couldn't remember anything? "What?"

Squeezing his hand, the angel got his attention back and he felt bad for having looked away from her. "Neal is a criminal informant and he brought a case to you on his former rival. You're an FBI agent so you pursued the case to prevent their victims from being hurt. However, you got hurt in the process."

"Where was he?" He asked the angel where the man was. If they were his rival, why wasn't he there helping to take them down?

"Not where he was supposed to be... as usual." She turned to glare at the man, "He was supposed to be watching your back and protecting you, but he was somewhere else."

So that's why the man was something else. He wasn't an angel like the woman; he was a criminal and one that couldn't be trusted at that. "It was his fault, wasn't it?"

Nodding, the woman continued to glare at the man so he turned his frown on the man responsible for his situation.

Sighing, the man looked guiltily between them, "I should go and let you two catch up."

"Don't bother coming back either." He didn't want to see this man anymore. This was his fault.

"I'm sorry, Peter," his voice was softer as he glanced back at them before shutting the door behind him.

Able to completely put his focus on the angel, he wondered who she was. "Why am I so lucky?"

"Because you're such an amazing man. Peter, I'm your wife, Elizabeth." She settled onto the bed beside him before leaning forward and holding his hand in one of hers while reaching out to stroke the side of his face with her other hand.

"Wow," he couldn't believe that he could be so fortunate as to be married to this angel. "Really? You're married to me?"

Her eyes got a little teary again as she nodded, "Yes, I'm married to you, Hon," she stroked the side of his face.

"I wish I remembered..." she got blurry before he felt something running down his face.

Reaching up to wipe it away, she leaned forward and kissed his forehead again before whispering into his hair, "I know, and I hope you remember us too. I've missed you."

"Missed me?" He closed his eyes and breathed in her scent relishing her closeness.

"You've been unconscious for nearly a week, hon. We've been waiting for you to wake up," she rested her forehead against his.

"We?"

"Me, your parents, Neal, your team… Everyone has been through to visit or called to check on you. You're the head of the local White Collar unit so there are a lot of agents who look up to you." Putting his hand to her heart, she continued to lean toward him.

She was his wife? He couldn't believe it. How could he be married to this angel? Then she said that he was a lead agent at the FBI? That sounded like an important job.

He was missing so much, how was he ever going to get his life back?

"It's going to be alright, we're all here to help you." His wife, his angel, Elizabeth told him.

And he believed her.

It had been months since Peter's injury and the man had regained enough memory that he knew who he was and how to do his job, but there was still something missing. He didn't remember the man that he'd been, so he was someone else, a stranger.

Standing and talking to Jones and Diana before they got to work, he knew that his time was limited because Peter would bark at him to get to work as soon as he entered the office.

He was still the man to blame for Peter's lost memory, the man responsible for everything going wrong in his life. He was a con, that's all he was, and that was all that he was ever going to be. Peter hated him and everyone knew it.

"Has he shown any sign of remembering you?" Diana asked with a softened expression, she knew that Peter and he had been very close before the incident.

"You tell me, he interacts with you more than he does me anymore. I'm relegated to desk work and he only barks orders at me if he needs something or if he thinks I'm slacking off." He shrugged, he had no idea beyond the limited interactions that he had with Peter and he hadn't seen Elizabeth since that day at the hospital. He wasn't forgiven by one or remembered by the other so he kept his distance.

"Caffrey, don't you have reports to do?" The expected bark came as Peter breezed by before glaring at him as he walked up towards his office.

"My case in point," he muttered as he turned and went back to his desk. He had his work to do, and although it wasn't difficult, the tedium of something so simple bored him. However, he was glad that they didn't have a more active case.

Their team was still out of balance since Peter wasn't himself.

He wasn't the only one that was being treated differently.

Peter tended to look to Hughes as the respected boss, and he commanded everyone, including Jones and Diana, as mere underlings.

He had no memory of any of his friendly relations with them. But at least he was working to rebuild some relationship with the agents, he respected them and knew that he needed to work well with them.

However, there wasn't any effort with Neal. He was merely a tool in his belt, something the old Peter would never do.

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