A/N-Reading back over this, I realized that it's definitly not what I like, but I can't think of any way to fix it. So if a chapter suddenly winds up replaced, you know why. It's because I thought of a way to fix it. I love the concept, and I love the way that the plot is progressing, it's just I hate the way that the words are being formed to tell the plot. But hey, maybe you can tell me what the problem is..

He sat there sprawled on the couch, halfway through a bottle of scotch when someone knocked on the door. He opened it to find Jordan there with a pizza in hand. "Now, are you going to tell me what the fuck is going on? Because I've heard more rumors in the past four hours about you than I've heard in my entire life." He shrugged.

"What are they saying?"

"That you're a drug addict, you've been married five times, that you killed somebody, and that you cheated your way through your medical degree and the only reason why you started working in the ME's office was because you're such a hack you'd kill somebody."

"I was, it was three times not five, and I actually passed through med school." She looked at him.

"They're true?" He shrugged again and grabbed a slice from the box.

"Every rumor has a grain of truth in it somewhere." She sat there, staring at him, stunned.

"So your whole life has been one big lie? I thought you hated your father for being a con man." He laughed.

"I hated my father because he was a drunk who kept saying he'd be around and never was. It would've been better if he just stayed away and didn't keep coming back saying that this time was going to be different." He poured her out a glass from the bottle as well, frowning at how empty it was getting.

"What else don't I know about you? I thought I was your best friend-" He looked at her.

"No one else knew about that until today. Except the people involved, and I don't think they link the Garret then to the Garret now. I buried that all when I got into college, and made sure it wasn't going to get out. Except someone found it."

"So not only do you have a murky past, but you hid it on top of things?" He nodded.

"Sounds about right." He poured another glass out. He wanted to get as wasted as humanely possible. Hell, drinking himself to death sounded good right about now. She had the same look of disappointment that Rene had had.

"So you're not the man I thought you were." It wasn't a question, but a statement. He shrugged.

"Depends on how you define that. I got into college and changed. Became what I am and put my past behind me. As far behind me as I could get it." She was as far away from him on the couch as she could get and it felt as if there was wall between them.

"You mean you buried your past so that you wouldn't have to see it." He nodded.

"I got into med school, I couldn't-look, some of the stuff I did should have even kept me from being admitted to med school, much less getting a job as a doctor. Especially not the chief. I didn't ask to work my way up the ladder, I just did my best and got what I should have gotten. I acted as if it never happened. Hell the guy in those photos isn't me, I've changed from him."

"What photos?" She asked. He laughed slightly and fished the envelope out. She looked at them all.

"Jesus Christ Garret-" He looked at her. "You were-"

"A good for nothing dropout." Eight mug shots, a few candids of him showing off just how wasted he could get, too many pictures of the pale sickly thin boy he had been.

"God, you looked horrible." He gave a small laugh.

"Hell, I could have been a poster child for the anti drug campaign.'Become a dirty wanna be rock star involved with sex, drugs and rock and roll, and you too can look this pathetic.'" He was drunk and he didn't care. He honestly didn't care. He had no reason left to care. He lost the one thing he had, and there was no chance in hell of him being hired again. Hell, there was no chance he'd be able to get a job in an ME's office anywhere.

"Garret-" She began and he looked at her. "What else have you hidden?"

"The better part of eight years of my life. Four of them aren't' that well hidden, the four that I was on tour with the band, about the only thing that's hidden from those, really hidden is Serenity. It's the next four, after the band broke up that I hide. No one needs to know about living in 12 places in four years, and that's just actual houses, that's not counting living in a car or anything like that." She looked at him, slightly shocked.

"You lived in a car?"

"I lived in a van for four years with three other guys and a whole bunch of random girls touring the country and called it being a rock star, a few months in a car was nothing."

"You really lived the sex drugs and rock and roll life?" He shrugged and downed another glass.

"Too much emphasis on the first two, not enough on the third to make it." She looked through the photos. He watched her as she flipped through each of them, the way she reacted to some of them. He couldn't tell which ones seemed to shock her more, the ones of him wasted beyond belief, or the mug shots.

"What did you do?"

"For those four years? Be the worst person that I could. I thought it was cool to try and beat Keith Moon for being the most wasted drummer in existence." She laughed slightly.

"You really regret what you did, don't you?" He shrugged.

"I regret people finding out what I did all that time ago. I can forget about what I was. Until someone else brings it up." He accepted that part of his past. It was what it was; he couldn't change it. But what he hated about it was just how damaging it had become. If he hadn't wanted to ever become something, he wouldn't care at all. To be quite honest, he enjoyed every second of that life. But he woke up one morning and realized that if he wanted to make it to thirty he'd have to clean up, at least a little.

So he had. He cleaned up; he went to college and he wound up in med school. He buried his past and forgot about it. "You changed." She pointed out and he shrugged.

"Maybe." He leaned back against the couch.

"So what really happened to you?" He shrugged.

"I'm sure Nigel can dig it up, if someone else could, Nigel can." She looked at him. "Just go Jordan, get the answers on your own, you don't need me to tell you that I fucked up my life." She kept her gaze on him. "Go." He repeated and she pulled him into her arms.

"You're not the man you were." He didn't know who she was trying to convince. Himself or her.