Two years, four months, and three days ago, Patrick had pocketed his grandmother's ring and promised himself he'd use it for its intended purpose; that he'd finally ask Rachel to marry him. It had been the hardest decision of his life.

But it's all just history now. And Rachel has moved on since then. They both have.

Rationally, Patrick knows this—Rachel has assured him of it (via text), his parents have told him as much, as has David, and beyond that, he can see it reflected in every salient fact he's learned about his new life over the course of the last forty-eight hours—but it still only feels like days since he's seen her (proposed to her) and emotionally, physically, the facts as they stand aren't enough to stem the gnawing guilt he feels inside, the trepidation that extends itself to the tremor in his hand as it hovers for too long over Rachel's contact page on his phone.

He knows she's expecting his call. He'd texted her earlier to check that she'd be available to talk to him—Free all night. Call whenever you're ready X, she'd replied. So, after they'd eaten dinner in front of a two year-old Jays game, but before Patrick could lose his nerve, he'd shooed his parents out of the apartment so that he could make the call in private, and in plenty of time to get himself together again (should it be needed) before David arrived. But now that he's on his own, with nothing to do but tackle the task at hand, he's stalling; questioning himself, fidgeting in the swivel chair in front of the desk beside the bed, eyes straying from his phone as he lets the seat rock him gently from side to side in a motion that's almost, but not quite, soothing.

He knows he needs to talk to Rachel. It's the only way he'll find out what finally happened between them to propel him to this point in his life, and the only way he can start to really process all the new things he's learning about himself (and all the new feelings he's having).

Technically, he's done this—made a post-break-up, what-next kind of call to Rachel—at least a dozen times before that he can remember, and probably at least once that he can't, so it should feel, if nothing else, familiar. Yet all that familiarity seems to do is reinforce the shame and dread he feels, because it's how he'd almost always felt, when reaching out to Rachel under similar (sort of) circumstances. There are no hard feelings between us, she'd texted. But...what if there were hard feelings? What if she was just being nice because of what had happened, because his mom had asked her to? She can't exactly be thrilled that he's asking her to dredge up the details of their final, most messy, breakup. Patrick never could bear to hear Rachel get angry, or worse, hear her cry, because of him. He'd always hated those kinds of confrontations, especially when he could never find a good enough excuse for his part in causing them. In hindsight, it's one of the things that had held them together just as often as it had helped split them apart.

He sucks in a deep breath and reminds himself that it's different this time. This isn't a break-up or a reconciliation call. It isn't even a lets-be-friends call. All those parts, the hard parts, have already been done. And even if there's a bit of him that still doesn't feel entirely convinced of that, there's only one surefire way to really find out.

He jabs a shaky finger at Rachel's number on the screen and presses the phone up to his ear. The shrill ringing trips one final panic alarm in his mind (what if she thinks that, by reaching out like this, he wants things to go back to how they were between them? What if she wants them to try again? And what if—) before she answers on the fourth ring, putting him out of his ringtone-induced misery and quickly making him realise he needn't have worried at all.

"Patrick! Oh my god, I'm so glad to hear from you!" She exclaims, with all the sunny warmth of receiving a welcome call from an old friend. Probably because, now, that's what he is.

He releases the breath he's been holding; it exits a little more audibly, more unsteadily, than he'd like. "Hey Rach, how are you?"

"Better than you, so it would seem," she says, bright and easy and, just like that, she's teasing him in the way she used to. He's grateful for the fast familiarity of it; it helps untangle some of the knots of tension his stomach had too-eagerly started to tie itself up in. "No, but seriously, I'm good. How are you feeling? How are you holding up?"

"I'm okay, I think. I feel okay, things are just..."

"Fucking weird?" She finishes the thought when he hesitates.

He lets out a small, resigned huff, "Yeah. I'm—there's a lot to adjust to, I guess."

"Yeah, a few things might have changed since we were, um…" Rachel trails off this time, and Patrick is fine with the brief reprieve from the cold hard reality of what she was about to say, even if the precise reason he's calling her is to talk about what they were and what they've become since.

"Yeah, you know," he replies, trying to keep his tone as light as Rachel's, "just everything."

"Well, they're all good changes. You finally got away from here, for one. And you have your own business. Those are both things you always wanted."

He nods to himself. She's not wrong.

"And David's great. How's he doing? This is all pretty crazy for him too, right? "

"Yeah, it definitely is, but he's been really… um…" Patrick finds himself struggling to find the right words to convey everything David has been in the short time he feels like he's known him, because good doesn't really cut it but, it's not just that; it's jarring to hear Rachel ask about David, to mention his name so casually. It brings back that abashed feeling he'd had before, like he's doing something not quite wrong, exactly, but not right either by talking to one of them about the other; two conflicting components of his universe colliding, causing a cosmic anomaly that he's not yet sure how to parse.

"Shit, Patty," Rachel sighs before he comes close to finding the words he'd been uselessly grasping for. It makes him picture the little crease that appears between her brows when she frowns, "This must all be so surreal for you. "

"Oh, it is," he agrees with a strangled breath of almost-laughter, because—obviously. He's talking to the woman he feels like he (misguidedly) proposed to days (years) ago about how his new (male) fiancé (to whom, he has quickly realised, he is very attracted) is coping with his sudden, inexplicable memory loss. To say it's all surreal is putting it mildly—he still isn't completely convinced he's actually awake.

"So," she says, obviously sensing his discomfort, "Any idea what might've caused you to… forget? "

"Not yet," he replies, grateful for the change of subject in spite of the direction of that change. This, at the moment, he thinks he can just about handle, so he gives her an abbreviated rundown of what happened at the hospital, a repeat of what he'd told his parents, as well as highlights of what he'd found out online. He has a feeling his mom might've been in touch to tell her most of it already, but if she has, Rachel doesn't let on, just listens, and tries to comfort him with kind words along the way.

"You'll get through this," she says, and she sounds like she means it, like she's sure, "and someday this'll just be a story to tell people at parties."

"Yeah," he lets out a sigh as he thinks of Alexis and Twyla for a second, idly wondering if they'll adapt their stories to include him—the brother's boyfriend, the café regular—if the improbable subject of memory loss crops up in future conversations. "I hope you're right."

"Well, everyone back here wants you to know they're wishing you well."

He feels his jaw tighten involuntarily, "News still travels fast, I see."

"You know how it is."

He does. And it makes him realise that the same everyone she's talking about must know about all the other changes in his life, and Rachel's, too. The stab of blame he feels at that—that she had to deal with the aftermath of everything on her own—smarts, and brings him sharply back to the real purpose of the call. He wants to make things right, or at least find out if and how he'd managed to do so before.

Patrick's voice sounds small but, he hopes, sincere when he tells her, "I really am sorry about how everything worked out between us, Rachel."

"I know you are. But let's get something straight - no pun intended - there really are no hard feelings between us, okay? I still care about you. We're still friends, and you can talk to me - about this, about David, about anything. I won't make it weird." Her tone shifts from sincere to sportive, "Trust me when I say that I am fully over you this time."

He smiles at the certainty in that statement. "Okay, well, glad to hear it, I guess," he tells her, and is almost surprised by how much he means it. He should at least be a tiny bit upset by that, he thinks; after all, from his perspective, they are, at best, freshly broken up, but all he feels is a bone-deep sense of relief, like he's finally allowed to exhale after years of being forced to hold his breath.

"I'm with someone else now too and I'm really happy, Patrick." Her voice softens, "Please don't take this the wrong way, but it's different with him than it was with you. Better. And I think it's different, like that, for you too, with David."

"Yeah. I, uh, think I'm starting to—it feels…" he swallows around what suddenly feels like his heart in his throat because he is starting to understand what she means. It does feel different. He realises that he doesn't really know David yet (in his present state he barely knows himself), but he already knows that he likes him, and from the pictures he's seen, the stories he's heard, all the evidence of their life together, on top of the way he feels somehow both grounded and slightly giddy when he's around him, it seems different too.

She prompts him gently when he trails off into silence. "It feels…?"

"I—it, um—" he stutters and clears his throat. His cheeks are starting to get warm, and he aborts his previous thought before it can make its way to his lips, "it feels really weird to be having this conversation with you."

Rachel laughs. "Okay, I get that. But let me ask you something. Are you more weirded out by having a boyfriend or by talking to me in particular about having a boyfriend? "

"A little of both, for sure, but I'm not…" he shifts in his seat, eyes flitting briefly to the framed picture of him and David on the corner of the desk before he allows the movement of the seat to swivel him away until he's facing the lamp on the opposite side. He isn't exactly sure what he's trying to say, never mind how he should say it. He sighs again, frustrated by his lack of eloquence. "I guess talking to you about being with anyone else would feel strange, but especially now, not just because it's with...a guy, but because I can't actually remember any of it. I don't even remember us breaking up."

"Okay, well, the general weirdness will pass, I promise you. It did before. We're actually much better at communicating as friends than we ever were as a couple. And I can make the other part less weird by telling you about our break-up, if you want to hear it, so just tell me where you want me to start."

Patrick does want to hear it—needs to—so he braces himself, tells her the last thing he remembers (which is being at the bar, trying to fill the gaping pit of uncertainty in his stomach with champagne and shots as their friends seemed to celebrate their engagement around them - although he doesn't word it exactly like that) and allows her to take it from there.

There's an almost breezy matter-of-factness to how Rachel talks about what happened, time-healed wounds affording her distance that he doesn't yet feel. He can tell that she's going easy on him; confronting the worst of their shared past in the gentlest of ways, keeping descriptions brief and uncomplicated, even though he's sure it felt plenty complicated at the time. She fleshes out what his parents had been able to tell him, that the engagement had lasted barely a month, that it was clear neither of them was happy, "We'd just gone back to silly bickering, not having sex - the usual - and one night I asked why you'd even wanted to get married in the first place if nothing was going to change. You told me you didn't know if you actually did want to get married, and it felt - not good, obviously - but it felt like the first really honest thing you'd said to me in months..." and so they'd talked, and realised that neither of them was happy, and that a solid foundation of misery probably wasn't the best way to start a marriage. "And that's how we ended things, with a whimper rather than a bang. Which, to be honest, was kinda fitting," Rachel lets out a small rueful chuckle, "I just left your grandmother's ring on the coffee table and went back to my mom's house."

He tries to picture it, to remember it; how Rachel's face might have looked in that moment, how he might've felt, but the image he manages to conjure conflates with too many other past confrontations, hazy and sour, and altogether less palatable than the (likely) sanitised version Rachel's telling him now.

After that, all she can do is confirm what his parents had told him; that he'd quit his job and moved away to nobody-knew-where. "You deleted your facebook, ignored texts, stopped answering calls. I think you just wanted to disappear for a while. I didn't see you, or even talk to you again, until I came to Schitt's Creek to—" Rachel pauses at that, hesitates.

The change in her tone makes Patrick go still. He thinks of the conversations he's had with his parents, with David, over the last couple of days—no one had mentioned that particular part of the past. Maybe because they didn't know? He feels his shoulders tense as he asks, "You came here? To Schitt's Creek?"

"Jeez, I'm embarrassed to have to tell you about this. I'd kinda hoped David might have mentioned it..." Rachel sounds uneasy for the first time during the call, and all Patrick can do is listen, partially unfurled knots in his stomach starting to twist and tighten again. "But yeah. That's how I found out about everything. It was a shock, at first, but then…it sort of wasn't, you know?"

It doesn't make for comfortable listening as she continues, a little less impassive than before, describing how she'd just broken up with her rebound-boyfriend, how she'd sent Patrick a string of unanswered texts — "I was lonely. I missed having you in my life, so I guess I just fell back into that old habit." — and how, eventually, she'd run into Marcy Brewer at a diner, how they'd shared a coffee and she'd told Rachel that Patrick had moved west to a little town called Schitt's Creek, invested in a retail business, and—crucially, pointedly—that he hadn't mentioned dating, or even being interested in anyone, since he'd moved there. (His mom had always meant well, he reminds himself, even as he feels something a little bitter rise in his chest).

"It had been, like, six months so I thought maybe you were still carrying a torch for me or whatever. I sent you another one of my 'accidental' texts, and you actually replied that time, so even though it was something innocuous like 'I don't think this text was meant for me', I stupidly took it as some kind of sign that you were ready to try again and—" she pauses to let out an exaggerated, self-deprecating sigh, "—decided to take a four hour drive to Schitt's Creek to surprise you. And boy, was it a surprise."

She'd hoped it would be a grand romantic gesture, she tells him with a groan of embarrassment, but when she got there Patrick wouldn't actually reply to any more of her messages, which meant she couldn't actually surprise him because she didn't actually know where he lived. Just when she was about to go home with her tail between her legs, a random girl named Alexis who she'd talked to a few times at the motel invited her to drown her sorrows in warm beer and cold burgers at a family barbecue and, the next thing she knew, they were having a very awkward reunion.

"There you were—sitting with your new boyfriend's family, grinning at him over a plate of sliders, looking happier than I'd seen you in a really long time."

"God, I'm so sorry," he tells her again, knowing it's useless and that she's heard it from him before, but he has to at least attempt something to assuage the guilt and shame washing over him in small, interminable waves. "I wish I'd had the guts to just tell you."

"I know. You came to my room to talk, eventually—you had to talk to David first, obviously, and his sister kind of filled me in while I waited for you to tell him about me."

He feels another ripple of regret. "He didn't know?"

"Apparently not. You'd started this whole new life without telling anyone about your old one, or vice versa. David was upset too. I mean, I showed up saying 'Hey, there's Patrick, my fiancé', so—you can imagine."

He can imagine, and it doesn't exactly make him feel any less contrite; it's all even messier than he'd dared imagine. Not to mention disappointing. Between this and hiding their relationship from his parents for so long, he can hardly be the best boyfriend David's had. The latest addition to the shit-list—'Oops, I forgot everything about our relationship'—can't exactly be a point in his favour, either. It leaves a bad taste in his mouth and a dull ache in his chest. It is, if nothing else, a sobering reminder that moving away hadn't, on its own, solved his problems; that he hadn't just woken up a new, more well-adjusted, happier, better person when he moved to Schitt's Creek; that it's something he's had to work at (obviously still does) and that he has, clearly, made some mistakes along the way.

"You told me you were in love with him, that day. That you'd always felt that there was something wrong with you, but David made you feel right."

What is he even supposed to say to that? He lets his eyes fall shut and hears his voice crack when he says, "Rachel. Fuck, I don't—"

"Ssh, it's okay, really it is," she assures him. "It wasn't just you. I always felt like I—I felt that same pressure to make it work between us. And I felt like I'd failed every time we broke up, because we were perfect on paper, you know? But that was just it - it was a fantasy, a story we kept telling ourselves hoping that it would eventually come true. It wasn't good for either of us."

With those words from Rachel, stating the simple, honest truth of their revolving door relationship, as sad as they are, he feels like the weight of the worry he's been holding onto—not just since he woke up here, in the new now, but since before he proposed to her, since before they even got back together; before the temp and before his mom had given him his grandmother's ring—start to lighten; gravity finally easing up on him, the pull of it suddenly less onerous.

She keeps talking. Like David, Rachel seems to know Patrick better than he knows himself at this point and demonstrates it in incremental revelations, opening him up, digging into the deepest recesses of him and pulling out secrets he'd buried so deeply in denial he barely even recognises them.

"Remember Seth, the emo kid who played bass in that band you joined in Grade 10?"

"Yeah," Patrick says, a little cautiously. "I remember Seth." The other kids in the band were all in Grade 11 but Seth had wanted to give Patrick a shot because he could play guitar and keyboard. Patrick had thought he was so singularly cool, with his low-slung bass guitar and chipped nail polish and straight black hair and eyelashes so thick and dark you could never really tell if he was wearing eye makeup or not. Patrick had thought he wanted to be Seth at the time; he stood out in a way that Patrick never did, never dared to.

"Well, you told me you realised that you'd had crushes - not that you knew that's what they were at the time - on some other guys, before David. You thought Seth was probably the first. And there was that theatre tech guy you hung around with all the time in college, and the shortstop with the hair, and some intern or something at your job, one of the times we were on a break."

It should be embarrassing to hear; would be if only it didn't feel so oddly cathartic. Those short-lived, intense friendships and fascinations he'd had at various stages of his life with guys he'd managed to convince himself he just admired, or found interesting, had been...something more, something he wouldn't allow himself to fully acknowledge at the time.

It makes him think about Will-the-temp's phone number scrawled on that blue post-it note; how close he'd come to using it before managing to talk himself out of it. And about waking up beside David; how one of his first thoughts was that he might have told Rachel he'd changed his mind, might have sought drunken comfort in the bed of the handsome stranger beside him. Neither were exactly the thoughts of someone secure in their heterosexuality.

It seems he even has a type.

He's been so fucking stupid.

"So, yeah. I guess we were both idiots not to see it," Rachel says, not unkindly.

"No, you weren't...I was an idiot. I wish I'd figured myself out sooner. I do—I did love you, Rachel. Just obviously not in the right way."

"I know. And I know you didn't even realise any of this stuff until after you met David and things started to fall into place. I've never been angry about any of that. In fact, if it's any consolation, you weren't the only one that had your head turned by other guys during our relationship. I mean, that shortstop was gorgeous," she laughs, only a hint of sadness in it. "You've always had pretty good taste. I only wish that when you did finally figure it out that you'd told me. What hurt most was that you didn't think you could trust me to hear the truth and still be your friend."

"I should have," Patrick says, voice thick, his mouth feeling suddenly dry. When his tongue darts out over his lips, he tastes salt from tears he didn't realise had started to spill. He swipes at them, sniffs, but lets them fall (he's denied himself, and Rachel, enough genuine emotion up until now) and what starts to pour out alongside them is new, at least to him. Rachel listens patiently as he stumbles through hard-wrought truths, past frustrations, and the sometimes paralysing fear he'd felt at failing to live up to every expectation that had ever been piled onto him. If she's heard it all before, Rachel doesn't explicitly say so, doesn't ask him to stop, and instead opens up to him in return, tells him about her own past doubts and fears and denials, and the pressure she'd felt from all the same sources. By the end, it's clear they'd each been too wrapped up in their own uncertainty to fully recognise it in the other. Patrick can't remember the last time he's had a conversation with Rachel that felt so open, so honest. It's simultaneously sad and strangely edifying. "I'm glad that you're still my friend, despite it all, Rach."

"You should be. I'm an awesome friend."

They talk for nearly another hour, and after tears and revelations, they fall into lighter conversation just as easily as they'd always fallen into a relationship. He doesn't have much to share about his new life in Schitt's Creek yet, but he talks about his parents and what they've told him, and she tells him about friends from back home (who apparently have much less of a problem with Patrick being gay than they do with his sporadic approach to keeping in touch), her mom's retirement, her promotion at work and her new firefighter boyfriend. She's still the Rachel he knew, but she sounds more laid back, more self-assured now, and he wonders if she could detect that kind of difference in him, too, before this.

"Please don't take this the wrong way, Patty, but even if you weren't clearly in love with someone else - and, y'know, very much gay - having experienced what it's like to be in a relationship with a guy who actually wants to be with me, I wouldn't be going back to sending you coincidental texts or suggesting we try again any time soon."

"Yeah, well, I can't blame you for that," he laughs, and it feels light and real as it vibrates through his chest. There's something liberating about realising he can still have Rachel in his life, laughing and teasing and oversharing, but also more; he can have the other things that he used to think he was greedy and selfish for ever wanting to explore. And so can she. "You always deserved better than I could give you. I'm sorry I was such a shitty boyfriend."

"Well, you should be, but only a little. You weren't always shitty. Plus, I hear that your boyfriending skills are very much improved."

He really hopes so, but can't bring himself to say it out loud.

"So, what do you think anyway? Have you spent much time with David since...you know?"

"He showed me around the store today, and we were obviously at the hospital together all morning yesterday. So...yeah. And he, uh, stayed with me last night."

"Ooooh..."

"Not like that," he quickly clarifies. "He was worried, I guess, in case something else happened to me. He slept on the couch. Like you said, this is weird for him too."

"Well, yeah. I can't even imagine."

He finds his gaze is back on the framed photo, trained on David's lopsided grin. He doesn't turn away from it, this time. "He told me he doesn't expect things to be, you know, like they were between us, but he wants to be in this with me, to help me through it, as long as I want him to."

"And you want him to," Rachel says, a statement rather than a question.

He answers anyway, because he really does want David in this with him. "Well, I...he knows me, how I am now, so." He tries to leave his justification at that, unsure of what to add beyond the ever-ambiguous so.

"So…?" Rachel prompts. "Does that mean you like him?"

"I mean, yeah, he's been—" Patrick feels his ear burn hot against the press of his phone, "—he's been really...helpful."

"Helpful?" She says flatly, like she's disappointed. "Is that all?"

"Yeah, and, I guess—" Patrick isn't sure how he's supposed to deal with his ex quizzing him like he's a kid with a crush (even if that kind of is how it feels). Warmth creeps across his cheeks, bristles the hair on the back of his neck, "—I mean, he's nice."

"And?" She demands.

"And..." Okay. This is teaching Patrick a lot about the kind of platonic friend Rachel is going to be. "He's...interesting."

"Hmm. Interesting. Is that all?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"No," she deadpans.

Patrick's makes a sound that's part groan, part nervous chuckle. "He's just been...easy to be around, despite all of this."

"That's good," she says, and he can hear her smirk before she adds, "can't hurt that he's also hot."

He's not about to argue with her; David is definitely hot. That is something he and his body certainly came to terms with today. But that doesn't mean he's quite ready to say it, out loud, to his ex-fiancée just yet. He keeps his mouth shut.

"You're gay, Patrick. It's okay to admit that you think your boyfriend's a hottie."

"Well, I'm not even sure that he's—that we're—" he trips over the words when he opens his mouth, thinking of what David had said the day before, outside the hospital — 'Let's just…start over' — "we're kind of starting over? Until I get my...I mean, I'm still just getting used to everything, so I don't think he's really my boyfriend. Right now. As such."

"Okay. But," she says, her tone patient, placating, but with a distinct hint of mischief, "do you think you might want him to be?"

"I—shit, Rachel," he groans and rubs a hand over his burning, blushing face, intensely glad that this isn't a video call, "this still feels really weird."

"Well, we've already compared notes so, trust me, it can get a whole lot weirder."

He snorts at that, in spite of his discomfort, and Rachel lets the silence stretch to show that she's still expecting an answer to her question.

"I mean, I think...maybe. Yeah. At some point? I don't know," he says, although he's actually pretty sure he does know; it just feels hard to say, at least to Rachel. "It's all kind of complicated right now."

"I know it feels like that, I really do, but I'm not sure it has to be."

"Oh no?" He huffs, incredulous.

"Not if you like him. Not if, as you said yourself, he's committed to being in this with you."

"Yeah, well—"

"Wait. Hear me out. What if your memory doesn't come back for a while. Or even…" She lets that thought hang, unfinished, for a second before heaving a small sigh and continuing. "I just think that you waited long enough to go for what you actually wanted, Patty. And even though you've lost your memory, you haven't lost your life. It's still right there, waiting for you to keep living it." Rachel says, like it might actually be that simple. "And you don't have to worry about what anyone thinks this time, everyone knows you're gay. Your parents love you. I love you - in a strictly platonic way, of course - and David's crazy about you. He's not going anywhere."

He feels the apples of his cheeks tingle and realises he's smiling. "No?"

"Yeah, no," she says with a sardonic bark. "I'm pretty sure you losing your memory hasn't changed how David feels about you. And you are - or were, anyway - also crazy about him." She pauses, sounds more deliberate when she speaks again, "I don't know how much you know, and I don't want to speak out of turn, but...you told me. How serious you were about him."

Patrick feels his smile fade. There's a cautiousness to how she says those words, laced with a subtext that he's pretty sure isn't imagined. He pauses before confirming what he thinks she's telling him by not questioning it. "I—I told you."

"Yeah. You told me, Patrick. You wanted me to know."

"Oh," he repeats. It's all he can muster at that. It's not a stretch, he guesses, if they're still friends, to think that he'd want his ex-fiancée to know if he planned to propose to someone else. He's glad that she knows; maybe he's finally done with keeping secrets from people he cares about. "Right. Okay. And you were—"

"You sounded so happy the last time I spoke to you. I'm not trying to push you here, lord knows we've both had enough of that, but I just want you to know that you don't have to deny yourself something you want to explore out of some sort of obligation to me or to your past or anything else. I know it doesn't feel like it to you right now, but we did actually break up more than two years ago, and you've been with David for most of that time."

"Yeah, I know, I'm just…still trying to get my head around that."

"And you will. And I'll be here anytime you need to talk," Rachel assures him. "I just want you to know that you deserve to be happy - that happy - again."

He feels his vision get tear-blurred at the edges but holds it in, this time. "I, well...I guess we'll see."

It's strange it should take this—a broken engagement, a neurological anomaly, hundreds of miles of distance and a whole new life—for him to really appreciate Rachel in a way that he'd almost forgotten how. She's always been kind and generous and candid and quick-witted and if things had been different, he would've been lucky to have her. He still was—still is—he thinks.

"So, are you going back to work tomorrow? Will you see David then?"

"Actually," Patrick feels his face flush again, but not with shame or guilt but…bashfulness, maybe? "He's coming over again tonight. He's still worried about me being alone—"

"Mmhmm."

"—in case I forget again or…something." Which is almost certainly true, so he doesn't feel too bad about not telling her that was actually him who'd asked David to come over tonight.

"Yeah. I see. Okay," she says, in a mock-serious tone that doesn't hide her amusement. "Well. If I can offer some advice —"

"Isn't that what you've literally just been doing?"

"Okay, yes, but here's some more. Don't overthink everything. If this - whatever it is - proves anything, it's that you never know what's around the next corner. And I know this is a shitty, scary thing to have happened to you but you deserve to live a little in spite of it. So you should just lean into whatever feels right," she lowers her voice, "And you never know – climbing back onto that horse might even trigger some really good memories."

"Jesus, Rachel."

"I told you, we talk about this kind of stuff now!"

"Okay. Well," he shakes his head to rid it of any and all burgeoning mental images, clears his throat. "Thank you for all the advice. And for everything."

"You're welcome," she tells him, sounding all-too pleased with herself. "When's he coming over?"

"Nine-ish?"

"Okay, so what're you still doing talking to me? Go dry your eyes and get better acquainted with your not-so-new boyfriend."

Patrick is in the bathroom, clumsily attempting to dry his tear-streaked face and fix his (short but surprisingly hard to tame) hair when he hears a gentle knock at the door.

David. Fuck.

He frowns at his puffy-eyed reflection, at how his pale skin telegraphs every tear he's shed over the last few hours. He's annoyed at himself now, more than anything, because he'd felt fine after speaking to Rachel; a little wrung-out emotionally speaking, but an hour ago he'd felt good.

After their call, he'd splashed cold water onto his face and wandered around the apartment for a while, feeling a little looser, a little drunk on sheer relief, as he looked for some more missing pieces of himself in drawers and on shelves, among framed photos he couldn't remember posing for and half-melted candles he couldn't remember burning. It hadn't been particularly fruitful. The relief-endorphins soon wore off and the intractable newness of everything just left him feeling like a nosy houseguest snooping around, prying into someone else's private (in the case of what he'd found in the drawer of the nightstand, very private) business. He'd stopped his scouring after that and allowed himself to sink back onto the bed with a small whine of resignation.

In truth, he'd thought about texting David at that point, asking him to come over a little earlier than planned. Being alone in the apartment felt odd. Patrick missed the physical distraction of another person (and David had certainly proved to be that) in the as yet less-than-familiar space. He'd quickly thought better of that plan, though; it was less than an hour before he was due to arrive anyway, and it would've seemed (even in his current predicament) way too needy. It would also have meant opening up his rolling text chain with David, and...that was probably not a great idea. Although delving back into his photos probably wasn't a great idea either, yet that's exactly what he'd done to pass the remainder of his alone time.

He knew that he probably shouldn't have, but he reasoned against himself that he'd already looked anyway and if he was going to feel like he was snooping whatever he did, at least the photo app on his phone might still prove an effective way of evoking a misplaced memory, of showing him something useful about where and how he fits in, here and now. So, mind made up, he had found himself clutching his phone close to his face, staring intently at the screen as he thumbed through the timeline of images, quietly hoping for a spark of recognition that didn't just stem from his scrolling session earlier that morning.

He hadn't been able to ignite that particular spark, but that wasn't what had upset him, because he'd found others; tentative flickers of hope, of happiness, of (dear god) desire which, unlike during his earlier viewing party for one, he hadn't retreated from, but instead allowed himself to be drawn into, until he lost track of the time, or the light fading around him or the dwindling battery life of his phone.

He just feels stupid, now, for crying again. It had been stupid; ridiculous, even. It had been completely irrational (and somewhat out of character, but he guesses his character is up in the air at present) for him to get so upset, in the midst of everything else going on, about something as trivial as his phone dying. It's just...when the screen went black it had taken with it David Rose's (gorgeous smile) face and left Patrick staring at an inky reflection of his own forlorn frown and the whole thing had felt like a sick punchline to a cruel joke that he couldn't rally the good humour to laugh at.

So instead of laughing, he'd cursed, loudly, and he'd thrown his dead phone down onto the bed with such sullen force that it bounced, fell, landed on the floor with a hard thunk and he'd sobbed, like a petulant child with a broken toy, until his throat was raw from it, because in that moment he felt angry—at his past and present selves, at the universe—and it didn't seem to matter that he could just plug the phone into its charger and have the images he'd lost back in mere minutes; it didn't matter that even if his phone was cracked and broken after its tumble he could log into the cloud and retrieve his lost data, because all he could think about was what use was any of that when it wouldn't help him get back everything else he'd lost?

And here he is, after what had actually, all things considered, been a pretty positive day; an absolute mess. A self-sabotaging red-faced wreck, just as he's about to see David, about to tell David that he's pretty sure he is gay and that he's pretty sure he likes him and that his ex had suggested he lean in and that he doesn't want to risk losing his new life just because it's been inconveniently misplaced by his malfunctioning mind. He paces through the living room, attempts to buy himself an extra few seconds of face-calming time by dropping to his knees in order to retrieve the spent phone from where it appears to have landed under the edge of the dresser (seemingly still intact, thanks to his predictably sturdy rubber case) before smoothing a hand down over his crumpled t-shirt, sucking in a steadying breath and pulling at the door handle just in time to see David—hand raised, poised to knock again.

"Hey," Patrick says, as brightly as he can manage in the aftermath of a mini-meltdown.

"Hi—" David says, coy smile quickly dissolving into a frown as he steps inside and drops a leather overnight bag at his feet. "Are you...What happened?"

"No, nothing. I'm good. It went well, with Rach—"

"You've been crying."

"Yeah, it's not...it's dumb, I was looking at—" Patrick lifts his conked-out cellphone for effect as he speaks, "at pictures. Of...us. From the other day and my phone just—"

"Right. Fuck," David interjects, something like panic flaring in his eyes before he screws them shut, shakes his head from side to side in disapproval before opening them again. He takes a step backward, closer to the front door. "See, this is why I didn't think you should look at them right away," his hands start to flail in the growing space between them, "because I knew it would be too much, too soon, and now you're all freaked out and...I can just leave if you're—"

"No. No, David, that's not it. I'm not freaked out. My battery died, and I just got…sad. And angry that I can't—"

"No, I know, I understand what it's like to see photos of yourself that you didn't even know existed and it is not nice and—"

"What? No," Patrick protests. There's anguish in David's words, on his face, that Patrick reflexively wants to soothe, to address, but he also wants to clarify how he actually feels before he really fucks everything up and David leaves, so he tries again, "It wasn't like that, at all. If anything, it was the opposite."

David's hands go still, one finding its way into the grip of the other for comfort. His eyes narrow as he studies Patrick's pleading face, "What do you mean?"

"It was nice. To see them. Us. It's just that I, um, I'm not—I've never…" Patrick stops for a second to gather himself, cursing the fact that he apparently keeps forgetting how to speak on top of everything else. He'd thought of what he'd wanted to say, before, but now it seems silly, overly complicated. He just knows he wants a chance at the kind of relationship he's been told about and seen glimpses of, that Rachel has given him her enthusiastic approval of, but everything still feels raw and not entirely real and he isn't sure he can put it all into words that won't overwhelm one (or both) of them, or that will even make sense, so he just spits out what he feels, as best he can, "I've never seen myself look like that, David. Like I do in those photos."

David watches him, brows furrowed slightly in a silent question.

"We—I look happy," he feels his shoulders rise and fall, feels another sob threaten to swell in his throat and he swallows it, because David has been nothing but strong and brave for his benefit and the least he can do is try to return the favour. He tilts his head back for a second, breathes, before pressing on, "I look so fucking happy and I don't know much right now, but I know that I can't—I don't want to go back to...feeling how I felt before."

"You don't have to," David says, his voice is small, soft, but reassuring.

Patrick forces himself to look at David and it's enough to make the words pour out of him in lieu of tears, "I want that, David. What we had. What I saw in those photos. And I know that I might not be the same, and that I haven't always done everything right in the past, but I—what if—I just—" He groans and rubs the back of his neck in frustration. None of this is going to plan; he's rambling, not making any sense.

"Hey, it's okay," David steps closer and reaches out, runs a warm, soothing hand over the center of Patrick's back. "Come on," David pulls away to sit on the edge of the bed and pats the space beside him, "come sit."

Patrick sits.

"Okay," David clasps his hands together on his lap and thumbs at the ring on his middle finger before he speaks again, sounding tentative, "So what do you mean when you say you want what you saw in those photos?"

"I...God, this is—" Patrick presses his eyes shut and he can envisage it; the expression on his own face as he looks at David, glowing as he shows off four gold rings (that it only now dawns on Patrick are the same as the silver ones David is currently - constantly - fidgeting with). He wants that. He wants to feel right. "This is hard to say, because it feels like I've only just met you, but it also doesn't feel like that, because...there's all this proof that I haven't. And I appreciate that everything's up in the air at this point, and I don't know how long I might be like this," he gestures vaguely at his head, "but I—we look happy. Together. And I guess I realise now that I never really had that with Rachel. But I think I had it with you. And I...whatever happens, I want you to know that I want that again," I want you, Patrick thinks, with startling clarity, and it's an exhilarating, petrifying thought. "I want it back."

"You can have it, Patrick," David says, quietly, cautiously. He doesn't look at Patrick, keeps his eyes on his own shifting hands. "That's what I want, too."

Patrick feels an overwhelming swell of tenderness, of gratitude towards him at that. His hand impulsively reaches out, finds its way onto David's thigh, low enough that the tips of his fingers just graze the curve of David's bare knee through the slash in his jeans. The hair there is soft and his skin is warm and he's suddenly aware that, other than a handshake, it's the first time he's actually touched David (even though he knows—he's seen proof—that it really isn't). It sends a tense thrill through his core, and he can't look away from the sight of it, even as Rachel's words swirl in his head, even as he asks, "But what if I don't remember?"

David's hand covers Patrick's, squeezes tight. He looks at Patrick, dark eyes glittering with emotion, "Then you'll make new memories."

With you? Patrick thinks, almost asks, but doesn't.

They sit for a minute like that, hands clasped, not quite making eye contact as the last of the day's dwindling sun settles to dusk in the space around them.

"When you said that we should start over…what did you mean?" Patrick asks after a while. It feels awkward but necessary to break the silence; to determine what, exactly, David wants. From talking to Rachel today, he realised he'd made a habit of assuming, before, inferring rather risk asking. It's something he wants to change.

"I meant that we could just be two people who work together, who are...in each other's lives, like we were when we first met."

"Right," Patrick nods slowly and watches David's mouth contort in response to the disappointment that must be apparent in his voice, in his face.

"And if...I'm obviously open to—I mean, I am also very aware that you feel like you've only known me for a few days - not that that necessarily precludes us from...anything - so it might be best to tell me more about how you think you feel? So far? About...me?" David asks, voice edging slightly higher with each additional query. He starts talking again before Patrick can answer. "That is—like, do you think you fall into the 'what the fuck was I ever doing with this guy?' camp or more into the 'I think I could get used to having this supple-skinned small-business visionary around' camp?"

"The latter, David. I—I like you. A lot," Patrick laughs, a little breathlessly, and dips his head. He feels self-conscious but certain, because he thinks he knows what that feels like now. And unlike any time before, he thinks he's allowed to acknowledge it, to act on it. "I think I've made that pretty clear already."

David's expression dances somewhere between delight and dismay. "Well. That could just be early onset Stockholm syndrome because you've barely spent time with anyone else," he turns towards Patrick slightly and his mouth twitches upwards at the corners when he sees that he's made Patrick smile. "But if it isn't that, then we...both know that we like each other. And we're business partners, and we're friends. And if and when you want more than that then you have the benefit and privilege of knowing that I am...very much on board," David's face stays carefully neutral but Patrick can't hide his own spontaneous grin at that, or his blush, "and until then, I'm more than happy to keep working with you, and hanging out with you. And to keep sleeping at your apartment sometimes, and to keep clothes in your closet, and to text with your mom," David maneuvres his hand so it slides underneath Patricks, so their fingers can fully intertwine, "and to hold your hand through challenging conversations. Y'know," David lightly nudges Patrick's shoulder with his own, "just regular guy stuff."

Patrick lets out another small, stuttering breath of laughter. David makes it sound easy. Perhaps it can be; maybe, he thinks, this kind of thing was never actually supposed to be hard. "Okay, David," he says, and Patrick feels a second surge of relief flow through him, coupled with something else this time; something more.

"Okay, then." David gives Patrick's hand a strong squeeze and smiles fondly, for just a fraction of a second, before tempering it, tucking it firmly between his lips.

There's a moment of palpable tension at what's been said, and what hasn't. Patrick ducks his head again, and grimaces when it causes an errant tear to fall from his lashes onto his jeans, leaving a small dark stain where it lands. "Jesus, I'm sorry, I can't—I don't think I've ever cried so much," He sniffs, rolls his eyes in frustration, and uses the back of his wrist to dry his face. He must look horrific, he thinks.

"I wouldn't say horrific. I mean, you've definitely looked better, but it's nothing a little de-puffing eye serum won't fix," David tells him in response to a thought he hadn't meant to voice.

"Well, thanks for that," Patrick snorts, "and for all of this. I don't know how you're handling it all so well."

David scoffs, blinks, shakes his head before he says ruefully, "We do what we have to do."

Silence settles around them again, the only sound the soft electrum hum of what might be electrical appliances or just the thrum of fervant energy vibrating under Patrick's skin.

"I should probably plug this in," Patrick says after a minute, lifting the dead phone still clutched in his free hand.

"You should. Although, maybe hold off on any more exploring for tonight."

Patrick nods and stretches to plug the phone into the charger, places it on the chair beside the bed, all without moving his other hand out of David's grip.

"You know," David says, tone of voice shifting into a different mode; casual, playful, maybe, "as far as uncomfortable pictorial viewing experiences go, what you just went through is still probably not as upsetting as the time my mother asked me to find her nudes online."

Patrick chokes. "What? I really wasn't upset—not like that." David half-shrugs, gives him a 'you know-what-I-mean' kind of gesture, and waits for the other shoe to drop. It only takes a second, "Did you really have to look for your mom's...?"

"I wouldn't joke about a thing like that," he's schooling his features, but Patrick can see the mirth (and something else he's choosing not to think about) behind the sober facade. "Can't you tell by the haunted look in my eyes?"

Patrick lets out a small uncertain chuckle. "So you found them?"

"Thankfully not, only some sub-optimal fan art. But she was devastated."

"Because of the sub-optimal fan art?"

"Because her nudes aren't actually anywhere to be found online. She wanted them out there as a testament to her, as she put it, 'youthful pulchritude'."

"Your mom seems like—" Patrick's dad had described her as quite a character, so he sticks with a variation of that, "—a fascinating woman."

"That's certainly one way to put it." David's lips purse, his eyes narrow. "Did she text you again?"

Patrick nods, feels his lips curl into a smile that he's pleased to see David mirrors. "Twice, that I'm aware of."

"Another good reason not to look at your phone."

"I'll leave it off until later." Patrick exhales and it feels steadier now. David knows just how to cut the tension, how to put him at ease, it seems. "Anyway, I have, um, been a really terrible host here. Can I get you a drink or something?"

"Sure. I'll have what must now be very flat champagne if it's still up for grabs," David's thumb rubs gently over Patrick's knuckles before his hand slides away altogether as he stands up. Patrick instantly misses the warmth, the comfort, of it. "And did you go grocery shopping today when you were in Elmdale?"

"Yeah, we went to Brebner's. I got what you'd put on the list," Patrick rubs a sweaty palm on his jeans before getting up to follow him, "although I'm afraid they didn't have the 80%, so the 70% cacao chocolate will have to suffice."

David pauses en route to the couch. "Oh, that's...Thank you," he says and turns back towards Patrick, "Did you happen to get the pretzels too?"

"I got the frozen ones that have to be baked? It was all they had."

"Those are the correct ones." David smiles again, enough that it crinkles his eyes and Patrick feels like he did something right. He's sure his heart expands a little in his chest. "And I could definitely go for comfort eating some carbs before bed, so if you want to keep catching up on those Blue Jays performances you've missed, we could….do that. Now. If you want to."

"I'd like that," Patrick says, empty hands finding their way into his pockets, "and since you're making them, I'll have a pretzel too."

"Oh, I don't cook," David tells him, eyes wide in horror at the suggestion. It's oddly charming.

"Would we call putting pretzels in the oven cooking, though?"

"Baking, then. And you were going in there anyway," he waves a hand loosely in the direction of the kitchen as he turns towards the loveseat, "to get me a drink."

Patrick keeps his eyes on David as he sits, folds long legs under himself, and reaches towards the coffee table for the iPad that doubles as a TV. He looks comfortable here, at home. It makes Patrick feel more at home too.

"Okay, David," he says, feeling better, feeling good, as he heads past him into the small kitchenette.

He might have, in his current state, only known David Rose for two days, but he already thinks that even if it was two years, it still wouldn't be anywhere near long enough.