ANGELICA It is WONDERFUL to know that you loved the previous chapter D!!! Yeah...there seems to be a lot of tension between the young Stryker and Yuriko ;)! Thanks for checking out the site too ;)! I know it's not much, but I just felt like making a site where I could put extra information about the fanfic )! As for the timeline, it's kinda funny how some think it's gross that this fanfic had somehow paired Yuriko up with "old man" Stryker", but Logan is actually the OLDEST out of the three O.O! LOL! Well, here's the next chap D! Hope you like it D!

Chapter 68: A night of icebergs

He looked around and observed his new surroundings. Where could he be now? This definitely didn't look like his living room. This place looked so new to him, but he knew that he had been here before. If his memory had brought him here, then his past self must definitely be here too. It always worked that way. Then his eyes wandered at the sofa in the middle of the room, and on the sofa sat his younger self and Karen.

Karen was sitting on the couch with her legs crossed in an Indian sitting position, while the young William was leaning back, with his foot on top of the table before them. They had a bowl of what looked like corn chips in between them and they were both looking at the television. They seemed to be watching a movie together.

Stryker couldn't help but wonder what the significance of this event was to him. After all, they were just watching a movie together. There was definitely nothing exciting or life-altering about that. In fact, the young William looked more engrossed in the movie than in Karen. Karen, on the other hand, kept on glancing at him.

"You know what, K?" He asked as he looked at the TV screen. "This movie definitely has the best car chase scene I've ever seen in a movie! Ever!" He said with an excited tone in his voice as he motioned his hand towards the TV. He didn't even look at her. Then he reached down, grabbed some chips and put them in his mouth. "I mean, whoever thought Gene Hackman could drive like that?!" He said with his mouth half-full. He looked very engrossed in the movie, while Karen continued to look at him, an emotionless and pondering look emanating on her face.

"William?" She asked. Her voice was soft and subtle.

"Yeah?" He replied, still looking at the TV.

"Who are you?" She suddenly asked. She sounded longing and unsure.

The excitement and awe in William's face suddenly disappeared. The smile on his lips faded and his eyes were filled with emptiness. He looked like a man whose life had just been drained from his body. Then he turned his head and looked at her. His face was serious and void of any emotions as she stared at her questioning eyes.

"What are you talking about?" He asked. Was she starting to suspect his identity?

"Who are you, William?" She asked again. "I'm asking you who you are." She said imposingly. She sounded persistent in getting the answers off of him.

William furrowed his eyebrows and looked at her curiously, as if he didn't know what she was talking about. "Who am I?" He asked with a chuckle. He didn't want her to suspect him more than she already was at the moment. He was going to play innocent and deviate to another topic and hopefully find a way out of this conversation. "You know who I am." He said, smiling. Then he breathed in and the smile on his face grew wider. "I'm William Stryker...the guy you met in the bookstore."

Karen suddenly looked like she was about to cry. She was looking at him, wishing that she could believe what he was saying, but she couldn't. And the more she looked at his sincere and handsome face, the more she wanted to believe that what he was saying was true. Then she stared into his eyes, and slowly shook her head from side to side as tears slowly started to stream down her cheeks.

"Karen?" William asked with a worried look on his face. He was now more worried about her than himself. He wanted to know why she was acting like this. Was it really because she doubted his identity? But why would she? She was his good friend. They've never even argued, even once, in the entire year that they've known each other. Why would someone doubt someone that they cared for and trusted?

He reached out to gently touch her on her arm, but before he could, she suddenly stood up and stepped away from him. She looked like she was scared at the sight of him, like she feared him and everything about him. She was looking at him as if he was some kind of stranger who made his way into her living room.

"I don't even know you!" She cried out, tears still running down her cheeks.

William stood up and looked at her firmly. "Karen! What are you talking about?!" He shouted. "What do you mean you don't know me?!" He asked. He took a step closer to her, and she took one step away from him.

"I don't know who you really are, William!" She shouted. "How long have we known each other?! A year?! We've known each other for a damn year and I barely know who you are!" She shouted out loud. She cried out each word as if she wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. "What are you?! Who are you?!" She cried out again.

William guessed right. She really was starting to suspect his identity. He really wished he could tell her who she was, but that was impossible. That would never happen. So he might as well continue to play as the blind man and the deaf man.

"You know me! You know who I am!" He shouted again as he pointed to himself. "I'm your friend! I'm that guy you always have lunch with! I'm the person who ---"

"You're the person who mysterious disappears for days! You're the person who mysteriously disappears for weeks! Dammit, William, where do you go?! What do you do?! Sometimes you just disappear like you don't even exist! I call you on the phone and I go your apartment, and you're not even there." She shouted. Then she clenched her hands and cried out. "I haven't even been to your apartment before! The closest I've ever gotten to it is your doorstep! It's like you have this other life that I don't know about!" Her tears blurred her vision as she looked at him.

William couldn't help but feel his own guilt suffocating his lungs as he looked at her. It pained him to see her like this, especially since she was telling the truth. Each and every word that she had spat at him was real. They were facts...not speculations.

"And I'm supposed to be your friend, William!" She cried out. "God, is it just me who thinks that we're good friends?! What the heck am I to you?! Am I just some person you have lunch and dinner with?! Someone you can spend your little extra time with?!!" She asked. Then she let her arms fall limply on her sides, as if she had given up asking these questions that seemed to bring her nowhere.

Then she gasped and ran her fingers through her hair. Her eyes remained glued to his. She looked at him, longing for him to answer her. She wanted to hear him speak. Why wasn't he answering her questions? Was it because she was speaking the truth? "And, and whenever you come back from those long disappearances, I see you with your head in a bandage and your arm in a cast, or a scar on your cheek, like you've just been to World War two!" She shouted out.

"And how do you think I feel when I see you like 'that'?! Huh? I worry about you, William! I'm worried that someday, you might disappear and never come back. I'm worried that I'd call one day you and find out that --- that you're gone forever...without even telling me goodbye." Tears continued to flow from her eyes, as if she would never stop crying. Quick gasps escaped from her lips with each and every word that she cried out to him. She had been bearing these feelings for so long and she couldn't take it anymore. She didn't want to lose him. She didn't want to wait for the time when he might completely disappear from her life. She wanted to know who he was.

William gasped as he looked back at her crying face. He could feel his own tears swelling up from his eyes. "Karen..." He said as he took another step towards her, his hands yearning to hold her again. But her name was the only word that escaped from his lips. He couldn't think of anything else to say...he couldn't think of the right words to say, because there weren't any. She had caught him between a rock and a hard place.

He did want to tell her the truth. He did want to tell about Code7 and his research and his other life, his 'real' life, but he couldn't. He couldn't tell her.

"What, William?" She asked again, trying to hold her tears back. "What?!" She looked at his face, expecting an answer. But he just looked at her blankly, as if he didn't understand her question. He didn't even say a word. "Please, tell me who you are..." She begged again. "I would get down on my knees if I have to. I'll do whatever you want. I just want to know the truth. I just want to know the friend I've been with for the past twelve months." She said softly, pleading for him to tell her.

"I wish I could tell you...I really wish I could, Karen." He said. Why did she want to know the truth anyway? Wasn't it enough that they were friends? Wasn't it enough that he was always there with her whenever she needed him? The truth of his life was no importance to her, and yet she wanted to know about it.

"But what?! Tell me...but what?!" She asked out loud. "Why can't you tell me who you are?! Dammit, William, I don't even know you anymore! I don't even know who you are right now!" She shouted. Then she gasped and looked at his empty eyes, searching for a bit of hope that he'd finally tell her something that would bring her closer to the truth. "Sometimes...sometimes...I feel as if I know more about the William that I met in the bookstore than the William who's standing right in front of me right now..."

William took another step towards her. "I'm still that William, Karen!" He suddenly shouted, pointing to himself. He just wanted it all to stop. It pained him that she was starting to doubt his identity. It pained him that she was starting to drift away. It hurt him that she didn't know who he was anymore. "I'm still that guy you met a year ago." He said softly. He wanted to get through to her...he wanted to wash her doubts away...because if he doesn't, this may be their last night together.

"But why can't you tell me who you are?! Why can't you tell me?! Don't you trust me?!" She asked, longing for a word from him. She felt like a starving child, begging for scraps of food...begging for scraps of William's true identity.

Then she quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and looked at him sternly. "What?!" She asked angrily. "Are you...are you some kind of murderer?!" She asked out loud. She knew she was exaggerating, but she wanted to go with the worst case scenario. She would do anything to pull out the answers from his lips...she would provoke him to tell her what she needed to know. "Or, or, are you...are you some kind of terrorist or...some kind of...of government spy, or a 'thing, or..." Her eyes moved from left to right, and her hands flew all over the place as she tried to think of more things to say.

"I'm none of that!" He suddenly cried out. How dare she think that of him?

"Then what are you?! What, William?" She shouted out loud, her tears starting to stream down her cheeks again. "I'm tired of asking. I'm so tired of trying to figure out who you are. I just want to know who you are...please..." She said through sobs.

"Why?" He asked, as he looked at her. "Why is it so important to you?" He suddenly felt a tear roll down his cheek. He couldn't even hold back his own tears anymore. "Why do you have to know who I am? I am not good enough for you?" He asked. Now he was the one who was asking the questions. He was the one who wanted to know what was going on in her head. "Why do you want so much about me?"

Then Karen breathed in, and she looked at him with her tear-stained eyes. Deep, quick sobs escaped from her lips as she clenched her hands by her side. She looked like she was about to say something important...something that she'd been meaning to say for a very long time...something that she'd been keeping inside for so long.

"Because I don't want to fall in love with someone I don't know." She cried out. Then she placed her hands on her face and sobbed. Yes...those were the words that she longed to say to him, for as long as she could remember. Then she moved her hands away from her face and looked at him. "You're like an iceberg William!" She cried. "The tip is so perfect and wonderful, and beautiful and glittering under the sun, and you're everything that I could ever want, but I don't know what's underneath! And I feel so stupid! So stupid for falling in love with a person I don't even know!" Then after she spoke her last word, fell on her knees, and cried on the floor.

Then William stood there, frozen in time, frozen in place, as he looked at the crying form of the woman who just confessed her love to him. She loved him. She loved him all long, and he didn't even know it. That was why she wanted to know who he was...not because she doubted him...not because she wanted the details and facts of his life...she wanted to know who he was, because of simple fact that she loved him. How could he have been so blind? She was right under his nose and he didn't even realize it. He was too busy yearning for the love of another, yearning for the love of Yuriko, that he had become blind and deaf to the one person who was yearning for his.

He slowly walked towards her, and kneeled down in front of her on the floor. Then he reached out and gently wrapped his arms around her, holding her close to him. Karen surrendered to his arms and pressed her face tear-stained face against his chest. She could feel his strong arms wrapped around her, cradling her firmly. She had never been this close to him before. For so long she wished he would hold her like this. For so long she yearned to feel his body against hers in this way.

He looked down at her face and gently tilted her chin up with his finger. "Don't cry. I'm still here." He said as he looked into her eyes. "I'll never go anywhere." Then a gentle smile curled up his lips and he ran his fingers down her cheek. "I'm sorry if I can't be the man that you want to love, but I will be the man who will love you without condition." He whispered softly as he looked at her.

Karen looked up at him and smiled. "That is the only man that I need." She whispered.

Stryker remained standing on the far side of the living room as he watched William and Karen on the floor together, wrapped in each other's arms. He couldn't help but feel envy at his younger self. Though he knew that was him, he wished that he was the one who was holding her right now, feeling her right now. But at least he got to see everything happen before his very eyes, and that was good enough for him. At least he saw how he and Karen came to realize their love for each other. It definitely wasn't the most romantic way to confess one's love, but that was just proof of how much they truly cared for each other. Despite the fact that he and Karen almost slipped away from each other, both of them still hold on, until they found themselves safe in each other's arms. To him, that was what true love is all about...holding on, and not letting go.

Then in the blink of an eye, his memory did another jump again, and he now found himself standing in a sidewalk...a familiar sidewalk. It was the same sidewalk that he appeared in right after he disappeared from Nathan's bookstore. What was he doing here? His younger self didn't seem to be anywhere. Then he narrowed his eyes as he noticed two familiar figures walking to his direction. They were a block away from where he was standing, but he definitely knew who those two were. It was William and Karen. And from the looks of it, they were holding hands.

x x x x x x x x x