So for fans of the show (and aren't we all?) and viewers of Episode 1, you are definitely going to be seeing some familiar notes in this chapter. I hope you consider it more of an homage than anything else, but after this point, the story will depart more and more from canon, as a proper AU ought to (at least in my opinion). Anyway, thanks for reading this far and I hope you enjoy it! (And a big thank you to everyone who's reviewed, favorited, followed, etc. - it's very much appreciated!)


She was dreaming.

It was one of those dreams where she knew it wasn't real, even as it was happening, even as she had no way to change it or to make it stop.

In the dream, snow was falling like a sigh upon on her shoulders, the ground beneath her feet dusted with white, and then the snow turned to an acrid smoke and then the smoke to a fine yellow dust, a powder that smelled strangely sweet and tickled the inside of her nose, and as she breathed it in, her head began to feel heavy, her vision blurring, as if the dream itself was transforming into something completely different.

From somewhere close, there was a murmur – not quite a moan – and she turned around, not seeing anything that could have made a noise, until she finally realized that all she needed to do was open her eyes. And so she did.

Her neck was slightly stiff from leaning against the back of the chair, and it took her a moment to sit up and bring herself back into the world around her. But as her gaze began to focus, she realized what it was that had pulled her from her dream.

He was awake, and he was looking right at her.

"Hey," she said softly, rising to her feet and letting his charts drop, half-forgotten, onto the chair. "How are you feeling?"

His eyes never left her, and it was slightly disquieting, the feel of that stare, filled with equal parts incomprehension, wariness, and recognition.

"You," he croaked, his chapped lips barely moving as he spoke.

She stepped closer to the side of the bed. "What about me?" she asked, now more than a little confused herself.

"You saved me."

She nodded, realizing that he must have remembered some part of what had happened last night, how he had woken up in the road and how she had helped him get into the truck before he eventually passed out again.

"I found you and I brought you here," she said. "But the doctors, they were the ones who saved you."

His gray-green eyes narrowed, as if he didn't quite believe the last part of her statement. She didn't look away, her attention held once again by their distinct color, and even though Dorothy had never seen the ocean, she couldn't help but imagine what it might look like during a storm, as the churning waves were whipped by wind and rain.

It was too much, the way her breath pulled a little in her chest, and she gently bit her lips together as she momentarily glanced away and then back at him.

There were so many questions she could be asking, things she could be checking on – What were his pain levels? Were there any signs of infection? Did he want the nurse or one of the doctors? Was there someone he needed to call, just to tell them not to worry, to tell them that he was alive and alright? – but she could only think of one thing to say, the one thing she had to know first.

"So… what happened to you?"

His gaze froze and then turned inward, tiny vertical lines appearing between his eyebrows as he considered her question. It was almost as if he was trying to puzzle it out himself, to reconstruct all the fractured pieces into some recognizable whole.

"I don't…" he stammered, his voice deep, with the hint of an accent she couldn't quite place. "I don't remember."

"Okay, yeah," she nodded, taking another step closer. "Sometimes, with traumatic events, there's some short-term memory loss. What's the last thing you remember?"

"I don't… I can't." His head shook back and forth, a motion so quick it almost looked like a shiver. For a moment, he looked genuinely frightened.

"Okay," she said slowly, trying to keep her voice calm and measured. "What about your name? Can you tell me your name?"

He shook his head again, offering only a gruff rumble of denial, as if words themselves were too difficult to form.

It couldn't really be possible, could it? Full-blown retrograde amnesia? Things like that only happened on soap operas and in bad romance novels. They didn't happen in nowheresville small towns like this and involve nobodies like her. But… maybe they did, because here she was, standing in front of a man in a hospital bed who claimed to know nothing about himself – not even his own name – and it seemed to be causing him a fair amount of distress.

So Dorothy looked down at him, and with her patient but insistent stare – honed by years of professional practice – forced his gaze to meet her own.

"Hey, look, we're going to figure this out, alright? I promise." She raised her eyebrows, giving him a small reassuring smile. "Let's just start with what we do know. You said you remember me?"

He nodded, and then shifted in the bed so he could sit up a little more, only to wince in pain, his hand swiftly stretching over towards his side.

"Oh, you've gotta be careful, okay?" she half-whispered, instinctively reaching down and pulling his hand away. She gently placed it back onto the pale blue blanket that covered most of his body, ever mindful of the IV needle taped right above his knuckles. His skin was warm, she noted, his palm and the creases of his fingers rough with calluses. He quietly stared down at his hand, at the plastic tubing that snaked away down the side of the bed, as if not fully understanding what he was seeing, and then he turned his gaze back to her.

"Tell me what else you remember," she said.

"Everything was dark… and loud," he began. "There was a sound in my ears, until there wasn't. And then I heard a voice… your voice. You were there, you helped me get up and get out of the road, and then, after that…" His words trailed off, the lost look of confusion returning to his eyes.

"And you don't remember anything else? Not where you got that wound…" – she nodded her head in the direction of his side – "or what you were doing out there? And what about…" She paused, glancing around the room, finally finding what she was looking for leaning against a table near the window. With two long strides, she was close enough to reach it, and she held it up for him, her fist tight around the textured grip. "…this? Any clue where this came from?"

He stared at the sword in her hand, and for a moment, she thought she saw the barest glimmer of recognition, until it vanished entirely, as if it had never been there at all. He mutely shook his head.

"Hmmm," she murmured, putting the sword back down on the ground. "You were wearing that, you know," she added, "when I found you. The doctors think you might have been stabbed with one like it."

She watched his face, gauging his reaction, but it was expressionless, with nothing that seemed to indicate he had any idea what she was talking about.

"We could check your clothes, the ones you were wearing when you came in..." she said with a tiny shrug. "There might be something there that could give us some answers."

But even that prospect turned out to be a dead end, offering little but additional questions. Dorothy found the plastic bag containing his possessions tucked away under the table, and after pulling out her own scarf and flannel – now streaked with dried blood – and setting them aside, she took out his clothes, item by item, laying them on the bed by his feet. His shirt she remembered, with the large stain of rusted brown unfolding at the waist, although now, in the quiet and calm of the hospital room, she could see the narrow rip in the fabric where the weapon had torn through. There were two jackets – one of scratchy tan tweed and the other of brown leather – and a pair of pants, also leather, that had no pockets and seemed to be fastened with laces rather than a zipper. What is this guy, a pirate? she thought, her eyes darting over at him quickly. At the bottom of the bag was some kind of thermal undershirt, with a hood, and a pair of scuffed black leather boots. Yup, definitely a pirate.

"Anything?" she asked.

"No." He let out a resigned sigh. "None of it's familiar."

"That's okay," she offered. "It might take a few days, for it all to come back. And, you know, your family might show up before that anyway."

She had meant the last part, at least, to sound comforting, so she couldn't quite understand why the thought of him being reunited with his family – with a girlfriend? or a wife? – was pulling like a tiny splinter inside her ribs.

As she was putting his clothes back into the bag, a soft burbling sound cut into the quiet. Glancing over, she caught the hint of a smile on his lips, eyes cast away in partial embarrassment.

"Hungry?" she asked, a teasing tone edging into her voice. "I bet you can't even remember the last time you ate."

And then he really did smile, his whole face lighting up with it, and at that moment, she would have been hard-pressed to recall her own name.

With the hope of dispelling some of the tightness in her chest, she let out a quiet breath and glanced away, her gaze catching on the tray of hospital food that had been left at his bedside table. It must have been brought by one of the nurses earlier in the day, while he was still asleep, but there had to be something there that he could eat.

"Here," she said, reaching for one of the plastic containers – applesauce, according to the foil covering – and a spoon. "You need to be careful after abdominal surgery, but this should be fine."

She pulled the foil off and handed him the cup and utensil, but he seemed to have difficulty holding them up, his hands and forearms shaking unsteadily in the attempt before they finally fell into his lap.

"Hey, it's okay," she said, gently taking both items from his grasp. "Do you want me to…?"

He nodded. "I hope I'm not usually this useless."

"It's the anesthesia…" she said, smiling gently. "And the Ativan." She sat down on the edge of the bed – a little closer than she would have gotten for any other patient, but he really wasn't her patient, was he? – and held out a spoonful of applesauce for him to take.

It didn't take long before the small container was nearly empty, and she was in the process of giving him the last spoonful when a bit of it accidentally fell onto his chin.

"Sorry," she muttered, and leaned over to wipe it away with her free hand. For a moment, the pads of her fingertips rested along his neck as her thumb brushed against the soft prickle of his beard, and then she quickly pulled back, feeling strangely guilty, even if she wasn't completely sure why.

They were both silent as she stacked everything back onto the tray, quiet softly filling the room, until she saw that his attention had caught on something by the door.

"What is that?" He nodded towards the white board, where the words "JOHN DOE" were written in thick block letters.

"That's you," she said. "You didn't have any identification on you when you came in, so they had to give you a name."

His eyebrows furrowed together, although it was hard to tell if it was in confusion or distaste.

"You don't like it?" she asked.

"It doesn't…" He shook his head a little. "I don't know why, but it doesn't feel like me."

"Okay," she replied. If he was already beginning to get some sense of himself back, that was definitely a good sign. "So what should we call you, then?"

He gazed back at her, gray-green eyes catching in the light, and shrugged. "Whatever you want."

"No, no," she protested. "That's not how this works. I can't just give you a name."

"Why not?" Was that a glint in his eye as he looked at her? "What's the first thing that comes to your mind?"

"No, I'm not –"

"C'mon, first thing –"

"Seriously –"

"– that comes to your mind."

She was grinning, despite herself, not really understanding how she had gotten dragged into this ridiculous mess, and as she glanced around, her gaze caught on the tray of mostly uneaten food and the thin paper liner underneath the dishes that bore the name of the hospital, the first word written there somehow filling the tiny spaces in between her thoughts.

"Lucas," she blurted out, quickly turning back to see his reaction.

"Lucas?" he repeated, even as a tiny smile began forming along the corner of his mouth. "Why Lucas?"

"That's the name of this place, and this town. And, I guess… it's where I found you, out on that road." She paused, feeling somehow that she had said more than she really ought to have. "Is it terrible? Look, we can just find something else –"

"No," he said calmly, waiting as she quieted. "Lucas it is."

"Okay." She nodded, softly biting against her lip. "I'm… I'm Dorothy, by the way."

"Dorothy."

The way he said her name, almost like he was breathing it, the syllables intoned with the deep pull of his still-unidentifiable accent, it was as if no one had ever really said it before. She had never liked her name all that much – it had always seemed kind of ordinary and slightly old-fashioned, even for Kansas – but now she couldn't think of anything else she'd rather be called, any other name she would have rather heard him say.

"So…" she said, looking for something, anything, to break the quiet, "I should probably get going." She glanced down at her watch, realizing how late it actually was, knowing that Em and Henry were probably waiting for her.

"Oh," he said.

"I'll be back tomorrow," she said, rising to her feet. "But you should get some rest, okay?"

He nodded, looking a little disappointed, but she tried not to notice as she grabbed her clothes from yesterday and stuffed them into her bag, sitting just where she had left it next to the chair.

"Maybe tomorrow you'll remember who you are," she offered.

"Maybe."

She gave him one last little smile before she turned and walked out the door, and as she made her way down the corridor she let her mind circle around his response. Was it just her, or did he not seem entirely excited by the prospect of knowing who he really was?