TITLE: Through the Door (6/10)
AUTHOR: C. Midori
EMAIL: socksless@hotmail.com
CATEGORY: JC/AL Angst
RATING: R for adult themes and language
SPOILERS: All of Season 8, except "Lockdown." (Crappy season finale? What crappy season finale?)
ARCHIVE: Please ask first for permission, and notify when archived. Thanks!
DISCLAIMER: This story is based on characters and situations owned by Not Me. These Other People may include, but are not limited to: NBC, Warner Bros., Michael Crichton, etc. No money is being made and no copyright infringement is intended.
AUTHOR'S NOTES: Thanks and chocolate-covered everything to everyone who reviewed Chapter Four: Em, Stephanie, CorruptCarbyChickie, Ceri, Kate, and Lyssa. The muse decided to play hooky midway through the writing of Chapter Five and your reviews definitely kept me going for many a lonely night. ^_^ Thanks also to Neoxer and pix for hosting—and, Holy Schnikes, Batman, fanfiction.net is back up! *dances* Am still a feedback whore, so please review—email me at socksless@hotmail.com or find me at ff.net under my pseudonym.
SUMMARY: In which Our Heroes talk a whole lot, Carter and Luka are forced to share screen time, and The Truth sets people free in a most X-Files-esque fashion.
CHAPTER FIVE
Amnesiac
And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make
you free.
John 8:32
* * *
THEY WERE STANDING IN THE RAIN, their wet bodies pressed together so tightly that neither water nor light seemed to spill between them. Words fell upon her palate like falling snow—soft, easy and muted. Her hands clutched at him with a sort of reckless abandon, and his hands to her, and they breathed in the scent of rainwater mingled with tears.
Then they were in her apartment, he asking her where she kept her towels and she gesturing vaguely before falling to the floor, exhausted. She sat there, numbed, as he joined her on the ground, his throat murmuring soft, soothing sounds close to her ear and his hands squeezing the water out of her hair with a towel. Sitting down, he did not seem so tall anymore, and she was grateful that he let them sit in such a position that he did not tower over her. His skin glowed warm against hers and sleep pressed down upon her eyelids like fingertips.
Gently, then, they walked to her bedroom, his arm tucked around her waist and her arm slung over his shoulder. A jumbled swarm of memories slogged through her head, thick like a sluggish river. The river had no end and no beginning and she drowned a little in it; in her sleep-induced haze, she could almost feel the brackish taste of muddy river water in her mouth.
He closed the door behind them and turned away from her as she peeled the wet clothes from her body.
* * *
It was still dark when Abby awoke, bare limbs slipping out of cotton pajamas and sliding smoothly against clean bed sheets as she felt herself rise out of sleep. Cautiously, she opened her eyes and with a careless sweep of the hand she brushed away the hair from her face so to better stare at the sight before her.
It was Carter, asleep and dreaming, sprawled on a chair dragged in from the kitchen. Somewhere in his sleeping face she thought she could see the boy he once was, the fresh-faced med student and eager young doctor he must have been, before his stabbing and his addiction took all that away in one violent, purposive sweep of the arm. Then she saw the man who had taken his place. In the shadowy cobalt of the room she thought she could almost see the scars tangled in every breath and every movement of his body. She knew these scars well, for she bore them herself—they were the scars of someone who had been to hell and back again, and now walked the earth with the weight of that journey etched indelibly upon their mind.
But it took only a cursory glance at his slumbering face to see that he was still a kind man, a kind friend, whose kindness was perhaps scarred but remained largely untouched by the events of his life that had forced lines along his young face. It was this kindness that tugged at her chest and created an ache in the back of her throat for in her stubborn self-reliance she had taken his kindness and treated it badly. Although she had never consciously held the knowledge in the hollow of her hand, in that quiet moment she admitted to herself that, yes, she had been aware, aware for a very long time, and this awareness allowed her to take certain things for granted.
For somewhere in the secret rooms of her head she had known (for precisely how long, she was still unsure) that his long glances and loaded words had meant something. She knew it like she knew her own heartbeat: he felt something for her. It was the something that ensured he would always, always be kind to her, and the something that she herself was not yet sure she could honestly reciprocate. It was the something that robbed her of her breath, for she could not separate the part of it that dazzled her with its jewel-bright intensity from the part of it that terrified her. It was the something that compelled him to stay with her last night even as they both began to fall apart, for she knew he believed that they had a better chance of holding on, together.
She knew that he was falling apart. She had seen the look on his face. Even through the rain, she would've known that look anywhere. She had seen him look that way once and only once before—on her birthday, when he recognized Sobriki's voice.
But he was facing her now, and he met her stare with a smooth, curious gaze of his own, the oddest expression lighting the autumn-leaf brown of his eyes.
* * *
He cleared his throat. "Hi."
"Hi," she said back, her voice small and tinny to her ears.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like hell," she confessed.
"Me too." Carter stretched his arms above his head with a small grunt, his hands needling the darkness of the room. "You know, this is not exactly how I envisioned it would be."
Abby looked blank. "Envisioned what would be?"
He grinned at her roguishly. "Waking up next to you."
"Very funny." She tossed a pillow at him, which he caught, then noticed the shirt he was wearing. "I see you're sporting the asshole line. That was one of Richard's favorite shirts."
"Yeah, sorry about that. I would've borrowed something from you but we don't share the same size."
"Were you playing dress up?"
"In your clothes? Nah. I wouldn't be able to fit."
"Are you saying I'm fat?" Abby asked, laughing.
Carter's mouth dropped open. "No!" he said quickly.
"You think I'm fat."
"Absolutely not."
"You're thinking chunky."
"Well…"
"Thin-challenged."
"I prefer 'super-sized.'"
Abby made a face.
"More bang for your buck?" he suggested.
"Great, not only am I fat, but I'm a whore," she teased.
"I, uh…"
"What time is it?" Abby yawned, letting him off the hook.
With feigned relief, he checked his watch. "It's about ten."
"Ten?"
"Yep. At night."
"At night?"
"How was your nineteen hour nap?"
"Oh my god." Abby ran a hand through her disheveled head of hair, shaking her head. "Well, that explains the industry-sized crick in my neck."
"From what Susan told me, you probably needed it."
"Not the crick."
"The sleep."
"Yeah, well." Rubbing her eyes, she stiffened as a yawn overtook her. "You talked to Susan?"
"I had to call in," he explained.
Abby's eyes widened. "Oh my god," she repeated. "Weaver is going to kill me."
"No, she's not."
"I was on—about five hours ago."
"Actually, Yosh was on. I called in for the both of us."
She eyed him. "People will talk."
"Like they aren't already," Carter snorted.
Abby widened her eyes but said nothing.
"Besides," he added lightly, "Since when do you care about what people say about you?"
"Since never."
"Exactly."
A hush fell over the room.
Abby looked at him. "Thanks. For everything. I owe you."
"Me? You don't owe me anything. You do, however, owe Yosh a new haircut."
She laughed. "He asked for that?"
Carter smiled impishly. "No, the staff did."
"I still owe you. For staying with me."
"Not really. I told Susan that you snore."
She blinked. "Do not!"
"Too," he smiled. "Loudly." Amused, he watched as a pout curved at her lips, her eyes narrowing. "Like I said, you don't owe me anything. We'll call it even."
Abby gave him a hard look. "I owe you everything."
There was an awkward, pregnant silence, and she inhaled sharply, her hands fiddling with a loose threat that unraveled along a seam at the edge of her comforter. She drew a deep breath. "Carter, I'm sorry."
He tried hard to look nonchalant. "For what?"
With an abrupt yank, Abby looked up, the thread in her hands. "For the way I acted last week. The way I've been acting all week long."
"Don't worry about it. I'm a big boy; I can take it."
"No, don't," she said suddenly, her eyes intensely clear in the swarthy cobalt of the room. She stared at him boldly. "Don't act like nothing's wrong, like nothing's been wrong…I missed you."
Surprised, Carter tore his eyes away from her and dropped his gaze, studying the pattern of vines and leaves on her bed. "I missed you too," he said, wistful. "And I'm sorry. I'm sorry I wasn't there for you when you needed me. I'm sorry you had to go through—everything—alone." He paused, his words barely audible. "I'm sorry about Maggie."
There was another silence as Carter lifted his eyes again. He found her staring at him steadily, a short laugh escaping her lips as her hands smoothed the hair away from her forehead.
"I miss her. I hadn't seen her for God knows how long, but I miss her already."
Outside he heard the rain falling, falling; tapping steadily against the flat of the windowpane, and inside the smallness of her voice filled the bedroom with its low, haunting lilt. He stared at her, sorrowful, as she drew a sharp breath and hunched forward, her legs drawn up to her chest. Her face bore the scars of her misery for the past week, her pupils so large and so black that they made her eyes look haunted and depthless.
"She called me on my birthday. She was the only one who remembered this year." Abby smiled—a sad, sweet smile—and half-shrugged, her hair falling around her shoulders. "She was getting better. I thought she was getting better."
Carter looked up. "There's no way you could have known."
She closed her eyes briefly then opened them again, the grief plain in her eyes. "Every night for the past week I kept wondering, what was it like for her? What was it like when she died? Did she know she was killing herself? Did she know she was dying? Was she sorry? Did she—did she think of me?"
He rose from his chair and took a seat across from her. Lightly, he reached over and took her hand in his, holding it warmly, protectively.
"She loved you," he said simply. "I know she did."
"We, uh, we didn't have a funeral." Embarrassed, she lowered her head. "Not a real one, anyway. Nobody would've come."
"Abby…"
"My brother—he's out of the country. He had less to do with her than I did. And I didn't want to stand at her funeral alone."
"I would've come if you wanted me there."
Abby looked at him briefly. "Yeah, yeah you would've."
"Where is she buried?"
"Minnesota. It was where we grew up. It was where she said she belonged."
"And that explains why you were gone for those two days last week," Carter muttered to himself, realization dawning on his face.
She looked up in surprise. "You noticed."
"Yeah. Yeah, I did."
"Two states in two days," Abby shrugged, an empty smile gracing her face. "It was a bitch."
"You should've told me," he said, but she wasn't listening. He peered at her, memorizing her stubborn pout, the way her hair fell to her shoulders, her dark pupils, so enormous that they seemed to swallow up her eyes. She was staring off into space, an odd light in her eyes, her voice delicately fragile in its precarious balancing act.
"Mothers are supposed to take care of their children. All my life I've had to take care of her. And…I was tired," Abby whispered, fighting the sudden rawness in the back of her throat. "I just got tired. I couldn't deal with her anymore. I thought she was getting better. So I left her alone."
"She was getting better."
"She was bi-polar." Tucking a stray curl behind her ear, her breath caught in her throat. "She had a disease, and I knew it. I knew it."
Carter leaned forward, gripping her hand tightly. "Abby."
"And I just…let her go."
"You didn't know."
"I was supposed to," she choked angrily, grief and guilt compressing her chest like a vice. "I was her daughter."
"And you loved her," he interrupted softly. "It's all you could've done, and all anyone can ever do, and all we can ever expect from ourselves."
She looked away. He closed his eyes and heard the anguish in her voice, staining every syllable like blood.
"But it wasn't enough, was it?"
"Abby…" he began helplessly.
She looked at him, her voice strangled, her cheeks dry. "I wasn't enough."
Carter said nothing, but tightened his grip as she bowed her head again and drew deep, shuddering breaths, sucking in the damp air of the room as she held the tears in her eyes and did not let them fall.
* * *
He made no movement to impose upon the narrow space of grief that was hers and only hers. Rather, he let her collect herself, hold the tears that threatened to spill over her eyes, and he listened to her breathe in the quiet. His hands laced with hers and his eyes never left her huddled form, which seemed so small in the embrace of his glance.
She was so small.
He had never noticed it before. In the ER she was smart and professional: the extent of her medical knowledge was impressive, she worked confidently and efficiently, and she developed an easy camaraderie with most all of her patients. She was more than a match for anyone in a verbal sparring contest, and she held her own against her peers and her superiors. She was firm but not pushy, both as a nurse and as a friend. For all the coffee and pie split between them, he had a strong suspicion that she made sure to stay one up on him.
In other words, she was anything but the small, forlorn figure that sat on the bed in front of him. He was numbed to see how vulnerable she was.
Slowly, he became aware of the fact that she was staring at him again, her eyes boring holes into his, and her mouth turned unhappily into an agitated frown. She looked like she was mentally wrestling with herself, with a knowledge of something dangerous and burning, and after a long silence she finally opened her mouth to speak.
"Carter…" Abby gripped his hand tightly, her voice wavering under the strain of a monumental burden. "There's something I need to tell you."
"What?"
"You're not going to like it."
"What is it?" he whispered.
"It's about Luka."
Inwardly, she winced, for immediately his face darkened, his eyes narrowing into shadowy slits and his mouth pressing into a thin line. He paused and seemed to be collecting himself before he spoke. "What is it?" he asked again.
"It's about the night I slept with Luka."
"Forget it," Carter interrupted her. "It's not my business."
"It was an accident."
"You don't have to explain it to me."
"But I want to."
"But you don't have to," he shot back, dropping her hand. The bitterness in his voice was thinly veiled as his hand went up to his neck, working at the stiffness there. "It's not like we're…we're…"
"I was drunk," Abby blurted.
His hand dropped to his side, his face startlingly white in the shadowy blue of the room.
She swallowed. "I was drunk," she repeated, visibly uncomfortable. "I was drunk when I went to see him and I was drunk when I slept with him."
The room was quiet, the silence rising and falling like the simple melody of a symphony, and Abby felt it flow through her, around her. Later in the solitude of her own room she would close her eyes and flinch at the memory of the look on his face, the sting so plain and so raw in his shocked expression. But now she resisted the urge to turn away and forced her eyes to stay on him, to see what she had done, to see what she was doing now—to this man, to her friend, and to the kindness he had always shown her. There was something infinitely tired about the way he now shifted in his place on the bed, in the defeated slope of his shoulders, and in the expression of his dark, burnt-wood eyes, dark like night flaming over a city, burnt like a razed house. It hurt to look at him.
The silence broke, bursting star-like into a thousand shattered pieces of glass.
"How long?" Carter looked at her swiftly, his voice cold and unforgiving.
"How long—what?"
"How long have you been sleeping with him?"
"I haven't been."
"Just that one night?"
"Yes."
"The night I told you"—she heard his voice crack—"I told you I wanted you."
"Yes," she said, her voice barely audible. "That night."
"That night," he repeated frostily.
A pause. "I'm sorry."
"You're sorry," he laughed, his eyes bright and brilliant against the near-black halo circling his head. "Why would you be sorry?"
Offended, she stared at him.
"I'm the one who should be sorry," he continued flatly, his face hard. "I'm sorry I couldn't be there for you like Luka was."
Abby felt her body stiffen. "Carter, I didn't mean to sleep with him."
"Of course you didn't mean to."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"It doesn't mean anything. Like your sleeping with Luka. It means nothing."
"Sarcasm is not one of your strong suits," Abby said icily.
"And honestly isn't one of yours. You couldn't just tell me you weren't interested in me?" he burst out.
"Carter—"
"You had to show me?"
"It wasn't like that!"
"Then what was it like?" he exploded, his face breaking.
She looked as if he had hit her.
Carter shook his head. He felt sick. "Goddamn, Abby, this isn't—this isn't just about Luka."
Abby closed her eyes. "Then what is this about?"
"This is about you. This is about you and what you want."
"And this isn't about you being jealous of Luka at all," she shot back sarcastically.
"No!" Angrily, he rose from her bed, his body facing away from her for a moment before he spun around again. "No," he said again, more quietly. "I don't care about Luka. I care about you. And what you're doing to yourself."
Speechless, Abby looked at him, his face flushed and his hair standing wildly on end like licks of dark fire around his face. She felt herself tumble out of bed and stand unsteadily on her feet, the defensiveness lumping in her throat.
"I can take care of myself, Carter. I don't need you to tell me what to do."
Unthinkingly, Carter reached out to brush a stray wisp of hair behind her ear. "You shouldn't drink so much," he said wearily.
"I had one too many drinks. It happens to everyone."
"It shouldn't happen to alcoholics."
"I'm not a drunk," she shook her head, angry at the tears that unexpectedly filled her eyes. "I can take care of myself."
"Is that why you slept with Luka?" he spat, his voice trembling like a wire. "Because you figured that this was the best way you could take care of yourself?"
"My mother just died." Abby tightened her grip on her own arms and glared at him, her eyes glittering with salt and water. "It's not an excuse, but it's an explanation."
"Right," Carter said, suddenly tired. He stared at her, the silence sparkling like a lit firecracker, and he broke away, his face white. "I have to go."
She watched as he gathered his things.
"Where are you going?" she heard herself say.
"I don't know."
"I'll see you out."
She followed him out of the bedroom, her eyes never leaving his figure, and brushed by him to reach the door. Wordlessly, she fumbled with the locks and wrenched each one out of place. She threw the door open.
Under the squared arch of the doorway he hesitated, and turned around to face her. "Let me know if you need anything," he said quietly.
"Yeah, sure," she whispered, avoiding his eye.
She stared straight ahead until he walked through the open door and into the unlit corridor. She didn't move until she heard his footsteps retreat into the darkness, her eyes fixating on the empty space where he was standing, mere half-moments before.
Outside the rain quickened, the low rumble of thunder ominous along the horizon.
* * *
The hallway outside the door to Luka's apartment was darker than Carter remembered. But then again, he hadn't been in this hallway since the day that he and Abby got arrested for breaking and entering. Faintly amused, his mouth quirked at the memory.
The smile disappeared quickly.
Hesitating only briefly, he raised his fist and knocked boldly on the massive door, his mouth set in a thin line and his knuckles rapping against the splintered surface.
"Who is it?"
Carter rocked back on his heels, and he worked hard to keep his voice level. "Dr. Kovac? It's me, Dr. Carter. I was wondering if we could talk."
"Dr. Carter?"
The surprise was unmistaken in Luka's face as the door swung open. "I didn't expect you."
"I know." Carter paused. "Can I come in?"
"Sure." The other man moved out of the way, gesturing for Carter to step inside, and closed the door behind him. "Why don't you take a seat?" he suggested. "Do you want a…a beer or something? Something to drink?"
Carter plastered a smile to his face. "No, thanks. This won't take long." He glanced around. "You've got a nice place," he said lamely.
Luka smiled. "Thanks. This is your second time here, no?"
He remembers, Carter thought, with a wry smile. "Yeah. It wasn't as furnished the first time around."
"Now I've got a brand new fish tank."
Carter's face froze.
"I'm just kidding," Luka smiled. "Look, are you sure I can't get you anything? I've got a shift in an hour but—"
"Actually, I came here to talk about Abby."
Luka looked surprised. "Abby? What about Abby? Is she okay?" His face darkened. "Is it Brian?"
Carter struggled to maintain the tight smile on his face. "No, no Brian. Nothing like that."
Shrugging confusedly, Luka walked over to his refrigerator. "She stopped by some time last week. Really upset about something. I was thinking that maybe it was Brian again."
He felt something inside of him snap. "She stopped by? What'd she want?"
Luka shrugged again. "I'm not sure. She was kind of drunk."
Inhaling deeply, Carter felt himself become dizzy, light-headed, and with great difficulty he pressed his palm flat against a wall, forcing himself to stay on his feet. "Kind of," he echoed.
Luka emerged from the kitchen. "So what is it you wanted to talk about, about Abby?"
In a voice that was not his, Carter spoke. "Did you bother asking her what was wrong? Or did you just skip that part and head straight for the bed?"
Several things happened at once.
He lunged at Luka blindly, the anger in him alive and sparkling like a thrashing fuse. He drew his fist back and propelled it forward, his knuckles making solid contact with the other man's jaw. Instinctively, Luka hit him back, his fist landing powerfully against the side of Carter's face.
Both men fell to the ground.
"Carter!" Luka yelped, dodging another punch, "What are you doing?"
"What are you doing?" Carter exploded, his fists knotted in Luka's shirt as he slammed the other man against the floor, heart hammering wildly in his chest.
"I'm not," Luka hissed between tackles, "The one," he grunted, "Attacking a man in his own home." With a surge of energy, he pushed Carter off of him.
"No, you're the one taking advantage of a drunk woman in his own home," Carter snarled back, scrambling to his feet.
Luka's eyes flashed angrily. "Look, Carter, I don't know what you're talking about."
"Sure you do," he rambled, the words falling out of his mouth with terrible ease, black and ugly and unforgiving, as he backed away, gasping for air. "You know exactly what I'm talking about—who I'm talking about."
"This is about Abby," Luka blurted, realization dawning on his face.
"She was drunk," Carter spat, his voice icily hard, like fine shards of frost on the verge of shattering. "She came to you. You took advantage of her."
"That's not what happened."
"The hell it isn't. She would've never slept with you if she was sober."
"She's done it before."
A hot flash of light blinded him, and Carter lashed out, the ripping sensation in his chest almost unbearable as he felt something clawing at his insides, fighting to the surface like a person flaying about for air.
Luka dodged his punch easily and backed away, eyeing him with caution.
Dizzily, Carter raised his hand to his eyes, his vision swarming out of focus like a funhouse mirror. He swallowed again, hard, fury choking his lungs, and he found it difficult to breathe.
"You stay away from her," he exploded.
"I already did," Luka roared back.
He felt the room spinning beneath his feet. "What?"
"You think I slept with her."
Unable to breath, he nodded.
Luka stared at him steadily. "I didn't."
The room tilted, and everything went black.
* * *
Luka watched as Carter disappeared into the dark hallway, the sound of the other man's footsteps fading into silence as seamlessly as the sudden hush that fell on the room like a fine mist. He rubbed his throbbing hand and flopped into an armchair, looking up to peer into the bright blueness of the fish tank in his apartment, momentarily mesmerized by the dawdling of the tropical fish in it. With a rueful smile, he realized that this wasn't even his fish tank; this, like much of everything else he ever shared with Abby, was also Carter's.
It wasn't in his nature to be jealous. Even when he and Abby had dated, it didn't occur to him to be wary of the camaraderie that his girlfriend shared with the other man. The intimate glances, the in-jokes, the two heads, both so dark, bent close together as they chatted with the air of conspirators—it was the most natural thing in the world for them, for their friendship, for Carter and Abby. What would he gain, he reasoned, by being jealous of something that was, for them, like breathing? And what he would lose—he did not have to ask himself that, for he knew what he stood to lose if he demanded from Abby that which she could only give to Carter. He would lose what precious little he and Abby shared.
It wasn't, Luka decided, worth it. He had dealt with too much loss in his life. So he let them be.
They were survivors, he and Abby. They both lived like they had something to lose, perhaps because they had both lost so much—she, her childhood, her marriage, her career; he, his family and his life in Croatia. That much Luka knew from holding her. She had come to him in the dark and in the dark they would stay. It seemed to suit them. It was where they made love and where they sought each other, and where he thought that he could perhaps make her happy, even if he never did in the end. The dark belonged to them and they to it, so what did it matter if the day belonged to him, to Carter, and to her, to Abby? What did it matter if it were they who belonged together in the light, like two halves of an imperfect whole, held apart by nothing more but their own limited capacity to see beyond? What did it matter?
Apparently, it mattered to him, to Carter. It mattered a lot—enough to motivate him to do something so foolish as to take on a man both stronger and taller than he, not to mention his superior at work, in that man's own home.
He wondered if it mattered to Abby, as well, and as much. With a start, he was surprised to find that he sincerely hoped it did.
Cradling his hand in his lap, he let him lose himself, however briefly, in the toucan-bright colors of the water and the exotic fish lounging in it, before rising to clean his apartment.
* * *
Sleep would not come to her weary body, rest not to her quickened pulse. Instead, she sat in bed with her knees drawn up to her chest, and her arms circling loose around her legs, one hand clasped around a pale, thin ankle. The covers gathered in a pool around her bare feet and her hair tumbled around her shoulders as she perched a melancholic frown atop her knees.
She closed her eyes, memories flashing across the insides of her eyelids like wind chimes. The pretty, random pieces shimmered together in an unfathomable dream, all blurred lines and midsummer's eve, the happy and the sad jumbled together in broken glass shards, sharp and gleaming and lovely. She gathered these pieces close to her chest, letting them cut her in long, lithe lines, and felt the guilt stain her like blood blooming against a white cotton shirt. Love, guilt, hatred, grief, shame, even relief—all flashed across her closed eyes in small snatches of music, and her shoulders slumped under the weight of it all, under the monumental weight of it all.
Overwhelmed, she let her hands quest for the bottle by her bed, and almost cried aloud in relief at the familiar feeling of smooth glass greeting the hot curve of her palm. Mouth bowed in a troubled frown, she gripped the bottle tightly, her body rocking slightly in place. Then, in a sudden fit of fury, she flung it across the room, watching through a lens blurry with heat as the glass burst and the pieces exploded. .
Raising her hand to her eyes, she felt a wave of pain ripple through her. Though her chest hitched and her eyes smarted, she could not cry, and instead she fell into a messy, dream-less sleep.
* * *
CREDITS: So did she or didn't she? A bit of a clue in the title of the chapter: "Amnesiac" is directly lifted from the Radiohead album of the same name, which was my musical accompaniment as I wrote this chapter. The opening quote is from the Bible. "Autumn-leaf" is a phrase coined by F. Scott Fitzgerald in the gorgeously written The Great Gatsby.