On November 2nd, Sam borrowed Zach's car so he could visit Jessica.

The last time he had been there was a few days after her funeral - his last complete memory from that patchy week before everything went blank. Back then he had taken a small bouquet of flowers; this time he brought with him a bouquet of flowers and a teddy bear. He knew they were useless, even unnecessary, but he needed to do this for her, however small of a gesture it would be.

On their first Valentine's Day, he had gotten her a dozen roses and a small teddy bear. It had been the first Valentine's Day he'd ever shared with anyone, and he was nervous and anxious and excited, and he did what he thought he was supposed to do. But as soon as he saw the look on her face, he knew he had disappointed her. Immediately he stammered out an apology, trying to explain that he didn't know what he was doing, and feeling like a complete idiot the entire time. But as he stumbled over his words, Jessica must have seen the stricken look on his face because she quickly grinned and grabbed the gifts from him, and hushed him with a kiss and told him how much she loved them.

Now, he once again had no idea what he was doing, had no idea how to tell her he loved her. Maybe Jessica would appreciate this attempt like she had before. Wherever she was.

As he bent down to place the flowers on her grave, he had the sudden, quick flash of a hand shooting up through the dirt. It was so vivid and clear, it made him cry out and drop the teddy bear.

Blinking furiously, he tried to shake the image from his mind, but he found himself checking anyway. The ground, of course, remained undisturbed, covered in grass that had grown in since they had buried her.

A deep feeling of despair overcame him. Feeling cold and numb, Sam let himself fall to his knees in front of her stone. There he sat, staring at the small portrait of his first and only love. Tears stung his eyes, but didn't fall.

He should have been here sooner. He owed her more than that. Did she miss him? Was she disappointed in him, in the way he handled losing her?

What would I do without you?

Mm, crash and burn.

He should have gotten home sooner. He should have been there with her.

And now Jessica was gone, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He felt like pounding something, just to keep himself from crying. He wanted anger to replace that suffocating sadness. But there was no one to blame for her death. So instead, he stayed there where he was, tracing the oval of Jessica's picture until his eyes became unfocused and his mind went blank.

ooOOoo

Life had a funny way of rushing by even when it seemed to stand still. Sam did nothing but work and study, and yet before he knew it, finals were approaching.

He surrounded himself with his notes and books, and even when he didn't have them within reach, they filled his thoughts. That was one advantage of his job – he only needed half of his mind to function, which freed the other half to go over everything he needed to study.

So he spent entire days focused solely on school, thinking of nothing else but his professors' lectures and textbook readings. He worked out the different ways each topic related to each other, he made lists upon lists of similarities and differences for the inevitable compare and contrast questions, and he even tried to memorize dates, just in case. When he had free time, he spent it at a quiet corner in the library or locked up inside his bedroom. Studying forced thoughts of Jessica out of his mind, and gave him excuses to stay in rather than go out with Rebecca and her friends.

The last day of official classes ended with little fanfare, and Sam barely noticed, his mind was so consumed. He hadn't even walked out the door of his last class and his thoughts were already focused on the upcoming finals. He was eager to get back to the apartment where he could bunker down and study.

Which was why it so strange that, as he passed the greens opposite his classroom building, something pulled him from his thoughts, and for the first time that week, he actually got distracted. It shouldn't have been possible, not even during that short time between school and studying.

Yet, even as he was running possible essay questions through his mind, he glanced to his right to the figure that was sitting at the bench. For some reason, it had caught his eye, and he couldn't help but turn.

It was a man a couple of years older than himself, with sandy hair cropped shorter than the typical Stanford student and a hard, angular face. With a start, he realized he recognized him, but it took him a moment to figure out why. When he finally remembered him from the grocery store, he wondered why he could recall something so insignificant from so long ago.

The man wasn't looking at him. In fact, he didn't seem to be doing much of anything. Just sitting there, gazing across street. His posture suggested he belonged there, a confident stiffness to his spine, but his demeanor suggested the opposite. He had a small cut on his cheek, Sam noticed, and a bruise along his temple.

It really wasn't anything out of the ordinary, this guy sitting on a park bench, so Sam peeled his gaze away and continued down the sidewalk. But suddenly he couldn't concentrate on anything else.

ooOOoo

After that first sighting in the park, Sam spotted the man several times around town over the next week. Once, on his way to grab lunch, he saw him walking past on the sidewalk outside his apartment building. Another time, he found him tucked away in a corner at the library. He was reading some book with folklore inits title, his body casually stretched out in a cushioned armchair. He seemed oblivious to how much he contrasted with the students who were bent at hard angles over books spread across table tops.

The mystery of the stranger gave Sam just enough of a distraction that his mind didn't implode from studying. In the midst of going over theories in his mind, he would pause to think of possible scenarios to explain the guy who didn't fit. His wild hypothesizing ran from a private investigator tracking someone down, to a spurned lover stalking an ex-girlfriend, all the way down to a Rudy-like guy whoobsessed over making it to college. Of course, the reasonable side of his mind figured he was merely seeing a regular around town. It just so happened he noticed this one guy more than all the other strangers he's come across.

The last time he saw him, the man was leaning against a tree, gazing at the college building just as Sam arrived to take his first final. Just as Sam was about to go inside, he glanced over his shoulder and caught the man's eyes trained on his back.

ooOOoo

Right after he finished his last final, Sam didn't get very far. He had only made it halfway down the hall when it hit him that, for now, he had no more school. The upcoming month suddenly loomed ahead of him in a yawning void, one heto his deep disturbancehadn't noticed until then. And after that, only one semester remained before he was forced to continue his life.

The realization shoved him down onto a bench that lined the side of the hallway. For a moment he was frozen. Then, with a shake, he stretched his legs in front of him and let his head hang back until it came to rest against the wall. Letting his eyes slip close, he tried his hardest not to think.

Several minutes later, he heard a couple more students file out from the classroom. "Hey, Sam!" one of them greeted. Sam recognized the voice of Amanda, a girl he knew only casually from class.

Sam quickly opened his eyes and saw her and Oliver walking towards him. "Hi, guys. How'd you do?"

"Alright, I guess," Amanda replied brightly. Oliver nodded and shrugged at the same time. "I'm just glad it's over!" she went on, dropping next to Sam on the bench.

"Ugh, yes," Oliver agreed. Sam cracked a polite smile, even though he didn't agree.

"Thank God," Amanda added, her back slumping against the wall. "So are you guys staying here or going home for the holidays?"

"Home," replied Oliver with a sigh.

"This is my home," Sam said.

Amanda rolled her eyes good-naturedly. "Well okay then, are you staying home," she corrected with emphasis,"or going somewhere?"

"I'm staying."

"I wish I were," Oliver added. "As soon as I get back, my mom's dragging all of us across the state to visit my aunt. I'd much rather be here, but she's too good with the guilt trip."

"Really? I can't wait to go home," Amanda said. "I know it's kinda silly, but it'll be good to see everyone again. Plus I won't have to rely on my own cooking! 'Cause I suck," she added in a conspiratory whisper. Then she swiveled around to face Sam, tilting her head. "Won't you miss your family on Christmas?"

Sam stared at her, and he felt his eyebrow twitch.

She grew flustered when he didn't answer right away, a blush coloring her face. "I'm sorry, I know that was a personal question, I didn't mean—"

Oliver stepped in, mercifully stopping her ramblings. "Sam doesn't talk about his family," he explained. Sam looked up at him sharply. "I don't think they're on friendly terms."

Sam ducked his head, his mind reeling. His family...

Oh, God...

Since that day he had woken up in the Warrens' apartment, he had not thought of his family, not even once. He never even considered them.

The tile floor swam in front of his eyes.

He could not remember his family.

His entire childhood--everything up to the day he started college--was a complete blank. He suddenly realized he didn't just lose eight months, he lost an entire part of his life.

Even worse, he hadn't even noticed.

He tried to figure out how the hell that could havehappened. His only memories were of his life at Stanford, and his thoughts had never drifted past that. And now that it finally, finally occurred to him that he would have a family, a past, it only made him realize just how much he had lost. It was like a light switch had been flicked on, but it revealed an empty room.

Amanda mumbled a worried apology and Oliver quickly changed the subject to his aunt. Sam distantly heard them through the blood rushing in his ears.

He tried to grasp onto something, any scrap of memory, but though he could remember the past three years clearly, everything before then was gone. Wiped out. His life had been reduced to his college existence – and he didn't. even. notice. Even when all of his friends talked about their own families and hometowns, he realized his mind had always shied away from the subject. It took a direct question for Sam to even think about his.

How could he have forgotten?

What the HELL is wrong with me?

Sam finally looked up at Oliver. He'd known him since his sophomore year, when the freshman had been given the dorm room next to his. "Have I ever mentioned my family to you?" he asked him, trying to keep his voice steady, unaffected.

"No, man, nothing. You always avoid referring to them," Oliver told him. He raised his eyebrows curiously, almost eagerly. "Are they really that bad?"

"Um...It's been a long time since I've seen them," Sam stammered, his mind racing. Were they that bad? He blinked hard, furiously, desperately needing to get away.

"Ah," Oliver replied. Sam ran a hand through his hair, and realized he was shaking. He bit down on his cheek and shoved his trembling hands into his lap, hoping the other two wouldn't see.

And then Oliver cocked his head. "What about the guy sitting next to you at the funeral? I kinda assumed he was your brother."

"What?" Sam gasped. He straightened at the thought, his heart jumping into his throat. But as his mind leapt to that memory, he frowned and slowly shook his head. "No," he replied, hoping they didn't hear the dejection in his voice.

He remember the funeral, vividly. It was one of the very few pieces he had from that week. Of course, he remembered it as he saw it, through a daze that had clouded his mind following her death, but the memory was there. He had been seated in between an older woman and a young man, neither of whom he'd paid much attention to. He remembered the former as a shapeless, faceless woman with a squeaky sob, and the man as a vague form beside him, fidgety but silent. He could remember the entire funeral, every long minute of it, and he knew he spoke to neither of them.

The man had clapped a hand to Sam's shoulder at one point, but it was a quick, awkward move. Too awkward to have been anyone he knew very well.

"It might have been Jessica's cousin," he said. "But it wasn't my brother."

ooOOoo

"Zach," Sam said. He waited until the other man looked up from the newspaper.

"Yeah?" Zach asked, and Sam took that cue to walk in from the kitchen doorway.

"I don't remember my family."

Zach gave a little jerk. "Oh."

Sam raised his eyebrows at his simple response, and he came forward, taking a seat at the table. "Yeah. Do...Do you know anything about them?"

"You never really talked about them," Zach replied after clearing his throat. Sam noticed he didn't exactly answer his question. "Um, maybe you should ask Rebecca," Zach added when he pressed him.

"Yeah, I will, when she gets home," Sam replied. "But...You have to know something about them."

Zach looked at him then, making sure their eyes met. "Sam. In the three years we've been in school together, you never mentioned them once."

His heart sinking, Sam leaned forward, not ready to give up. "Can't you tell me anything?" But the older Warren shook his head, breaking eye contact.

"No, Sam, I'm sorry."

Sam's reaction was instant. "But I don't even know who I am!" he cried. Zach flinched at his outburst, and Sam immediately regretted it. He had meant to keep that thought private, meant to keep it shoved down where he couldn't feel it.

They fell into silence, and after a moment, Zach shifted in his seat. "Look, Sam...They've always been a taboo subject for you, and now your mind wiped their memory away. Maybe—maybe it's best that you forgot."

"My own family?"

Zach sighed. "I know. I just...I don't know what to tell you. I don't think I should be the one to--to get involved."

Sam narrowed his eyes, suddenly positive that Zach knew more than he let on. "What do you mean?" But Zach only shook his head and went back to reading the paper. When Sam pressed him, he flatly ignored his questions.

Rebecca wasn't any better. In fact, when he cornered her, she appeared just as uncomfortable – as nervous, Sam suddenly realized – as Zach.

"I don't want you to get hurt," was all she would tell him.

Every single review appreciated!