Chapter Eight: Arthur Gibson, wake up. Wake up.

"Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces."

~Sigmund Freud

The rest of the weekend rolls by, uneventfully. I lay awake on those nights, with my wife in my arms, listening to her soft inhalations and exhalations of breath. We make pancakes together on Sunday morning, argue companionably over who gets first crack at The New York Times crossword puzzle, and, I nag her to do her share of the household chores. It's 48 hours, more than enough time but Monday arrives and I dawdle in the house when I should have been well on my way to work.

I'm finally about to head out the door as I notice my wife is still in her pajamas at the kitchen table, picking over the remnants of breakfast. "Better get a move on, or, you'll be obnoxiously late."

She pops a blueberry in her mouth. "Working from home today."

I roll my eyes as I lean down and kiss her lightly on the top of her head. "What a toiling life you lead, Mrs. Gibson."

She grabs my tie and I'm yanked down for something more intense. "Don't be jealous, Mr. Gibson. I'll swing by later today; we'll have lunch."

"Sounds like a plan." We pull away, but my gaze lingers over her eyes, her lips. The spot of strawberry preserves on her lower left cheek. I wipe it away with my thumb and anticipate what it will be like to grow old with this woman. Something inside of me is begging me to stay, to extend the weekend for one more day. I'm immeasurably sad as I walk out the door.

Mal is already at the hospital by the time I get there. "How's our patient doing at Thousand Oaks?"

"Incredibly well. It's like she only fell asleep after having a late night - she's displaying almost none of the symptoms that are typical for coma emergents."

"We'll ask Harry to join us this afternoon - see how much physical therapy she may need. I also want to test her neuoro-muscular reflexes. What time are we meeting this fellow?"

She checks her watch. "Another half an hour?"

Forty-five minutes later, an Englishman is escorted into the adjoining meeting room between mine and Mal's offices. "Damned L.A. traffic", mutters the man as he extends a hand out towards me. "John Albert Eames." He turns to Mal and slides seamlessly into perfect French. He kisses the topside of her palm.

"It's a pleasure to meet you, Mr. Eames", Mal says, in English.

His smile grows wider. "Please. Call me Bertie. Or Eames. Anything else makes me think I'm a headmaster. Or a butler."

"Very well, Bertie. As you know, Arthur and I have been discussing the possibility of opening our own clinic, focusing only on victims of traumatic brain injury. We called this meeting with you to analyze the viability of this plan."

Despite Eames' exterior, his questions are intelligent and his answers are well-informed. We spend an hour planning our strategy and identifying next steps. I find myself liking the man considerably. The meeting ends amicably, with Eames promising to follow up in three days' time. Mal and I make haste to Thousand Oaks; our coma patient's family is waiting for us and we are eager to be more fully testing her cognitive functions.

I check the side mirror and mutter an oath. This causes Mal to twist her head and look back. I pull off to the curb as Mal reaches into glove compartment across from her for the car's registration.

He's wearing dark trousers and a thin, tan, long overcoat. I roll down the window. "Hello, Officer." The angle of my vision doesn't allow me to see much more than his torso. I hand over my license and registration.

"Arthur Gibson. M.D. Big, fancy doctor, aren't we? Big, fancy car. Do you know why I pulled you over?" As the plainclothes officer says this, Mal and I glance at each other. I'm driving a Prius.

I opt for honesty and contrition, sensing the man would not take well to any sort of feigned grace or charm. "I was speeding. I'm sorry; there's no excuse for it."

"Do you realize you put yourself and your passenger at risk?" I see him reach into his pocket and pull out a ticket pad.

I nod. "Absolutely, sir. You were right to pull me over."

Without warning, the detective invades my personal space. He leans his head into the car interior through my window. His bloodshot eyes and stubble jaw are the first things I notice. "What, no attempt to throw some money at the problem?"

I open my mouth but no sound comes out. "Excuse me?", I hear Mal say, but I don't turn at the outrage in her voice. There's something about this man that brings back the odd feelings I've experienced during the weekend. Like he is familiar to a strange life - one that I don't want and can't understand, but, nonetheless, belongs to me.

He grins, and I intuit that he knows exactly what I'm thinking, right down to the very last word. He leans in closer, so that I can smell the ring of tobacco around him. "You know what I'm talking about, don't you? It's not a new concept, is it, rich boy?"

A room whose walls are painted brown flashes from the recesses of my mind, the kind of room that swallows the fluorescent light overhead. It's cold, but I'm sweating.

"I loved her!"

"What kind of a man are you?"

Mal's hands are curled around my forearm. Which is suspended in mid air. "Arthur, what's wrong with you? He's a police officer!", she says in as low a tone as possible.

I turn to the detective again, and, in as calm a voice as I can manage, "Officer, we have a patient to tend to. Just give me my ticket."

He looks like he wants to harass me further, but in a few minutes he's walking back to his car and there's a piece of paper in my hand. Through the rearview window, I watch him detach the siren from the car roof and slide behind the steering wheel before shifting into gear. Passing us by, he gives me a salutatory gesture with the two of his fingers on his forehead. In a few moments, I too am back on the road. "Who was he? We should have asked for his badge and reported him!"

"Let it go, Mal. We'll run into jerks like that once or twice in our lifetime."

She twists in her seat. "Let it go? How can you say that? You were ready to hit the man seconds ago!"

I shrug. "What can I say? Heat of the moment."

We arrive at Thousand Oaks and find the parents of our patient sitting by her bedside. They look up as we approach. "This is a miracle!", exclaims the mother.

Mal smiles and turns to the patient. "We'd like to run some other tests on you today - mainly to see how much you remember and what you remember. That's also why we've asked your family to be here - sometimes the things that seem like a memory, aren't."

The young woman acknowledges Mal's words but directs her question at me. "Do you want me to try again to remember what happened before I woke up?"

I nod. "Just try your best."

She starts, slowly, as if standing on a tenuous edge and reaching towards something just beyond her grasp. "I remember going to a party. We started off drinking soda, but someone gave me a cup that was mixed with alcohol." She looks apologetically over at her mother. "I didn't stop drinking it after I realized what was in it."

"It's alright. Keep going", Mal says in a gentle and encouraging tone.

"After awhile, I stopped drinking. Mostly because my boyfriend kept telling me not to." Her face pinches in as she concentrates. "Things get a little bit fuzzy after that. I remember feeling buzzed as the party was winding down, but I don't remember how we figured out a way home. I must have been gotten in my car to drive home."

I ask, "Do you remember your boyfriend's name?"

She looks at me for a long while. "He's dead, isn't he."

Her father clears his throat. Reaches out to take her hand. "Honey, Lisa was at the party that night. She was with you most of the time. You didn't have a boyfriend then. You didn't meet any boy there."

It doesn't seem like the words get through to her. But then her jaw tightens. "No. That's a lie. I remember he was there." She turns back to me. "You know it's true. Tell them."

"Arthur?" I turn around and see my wife standing in the door frame. "I was told you were finishing up." Then she notices the patient; her mouth opens as a strong expression sweeps over her face. "You."

I step in between the two of them, facing my patient. "What was his name? Who drove your car home?"

My wife spins around me and I turn with the intention to stop her or follow her. But somehow I end up turning around and around and when I stop, I'm dizzy. Now they are both standing in front of me. Paige and Ariadne, side by side, holding hands as children do, staring calmly at me. Who are they? Who is my past and who is my future?

They don't say anything, but I know they are asking me for something. I am shaking my head, inexplicably angry. "I can't choose. I won't. I need to know the truth. Tell me."

I blink; suddenly, they're both wearing identical outfits. Almost everyone else but the three of us are gone. Paige says, "The truth is I don't want this for you. And I don't want to know what really happened."

Ariadne walks up to me, places her hand on one side of my face. "The truth is I'm really scared. I don't want to get hurt."

"The truth is, this is the happiest I've felt in a long time. Isn't it, Arthur?" This from Mal. She walks over to stand beside the other two women.

I rub a hand over my eyes. "This isn't why I'm here." I look around but the hypnosis has stilted my ability to control my surroundings. I can do this, I know I can do this. Fog and smoke roll in, out of nowhere, covering everything in a grey mist until I can't see anything. I call out my wife's name, but I hear no echo and I hear no response.

It's the salt air and waves that I notice immediately. The sun is sinking into the horizon, lighting the edge of this world on fire. I know right away which beach I'm standing on. In the distance, I see a lone figure, silhouetted against the twilight, drawing in the sand. She squints up as my shadow falls over her. "That's a good rendering of the hotel."

She shrugs as she drags a finger through the damp sand, forming a line. "Our mind never loses a memory." She slides a look at me from the corner of her eyes. "Even if we can't access most of it."

"You understand why I'm doing this, don't you?" I drop to my knees in front of her and place my hands on her shoulder while she continues to make shapes in the ground.

She finally stops. "I understand that you think it's important. But I don't understand why you feel this way."

"Why am I dreaming that we are married?"

She lifts her shoulder. "Why does anyone dream anything? It could mean everything, and, nothing." She laughs at my expression. "Now you know how others feel when you give them cryptic responses. It doesn't make what I said any more or less true, though. You have a theory, though. Why don't you tell me why?"

I run my hand over her hair. I say it even though I don't want to, but there is no point of hiding in here."Because I love you."

She breaks our eye contact. "Is that good or bad?"

"I don't know how to let go. I don't know if I'll ever be able to love anyone without associating it with guilt and shame. I want to be free of that. If I found out what happened, I might have a chance. We might have a chance."

She kisses me. It's as I remember it but even as I think it, she pulls free. I see the answer on her face before she vocalizes it. "I can't tell you."

"Can't? Or won't?" I push myself away, as anger surges through me. I stand at a distance, tense and counting.

She presses into my back, her arms winding around my waist. "Sometimes the answer you need is the answer you are given. Sometimes you must accept the silence."

"If you're a part of me, you should know better than to expect I could live with that answer."

Her hands cover mine. I feel her lips moving against the area of my back between my shoulder blades. In spite of what I know, there's a heaviness in my chest. It's a reality I can't ignore. She says, "I think we both know if that were really the case, we wouldn't be having this argument."

I disentangle myself from her hold - her face, her form, her whole being is too much for me right now. "You have a million choices; you can look like anyone, anything. Why do you have to come to me as her?"

She ignores my accusatory finger. Brushes it aside with a hand. "You came to me - you have been seeking this part of you for years. You dig and you dig and you dig, hoping to find something other than what is there. Aren't you tired? Haven't you repented enough?" She steps closer. "I am who I am because of who you are and how you feel."

I bow my head. "I don't know how to be any thing than what I am now. How do I stop?"

She smiles, just the way I remember it. "You just do."

"What about the line?"

She laughs. "Always with the questions. No wonder you're the point man. Arthur, stop looking for the line. The line is you and not you. It's twisted in your blood, it's the darkness in your memory. It's the reason why you love who you love, and you'll never be that person you think you remember you once were. Maybe you never were." She is looking at me as if I really should know this. "It's almost time for you to go."

There's the tinkling, faint sound of music in the background. "If I seek you out again, will you be here?"

She shrugs. "Who can say? But I am hoping you won't come back."

"Not even for peace of mind?"

Things around us are crumbling - light is swallowing up the sky, the ocean and the beach around us. She starts to blend into that light and when she is almost gone, I hear her say,"That's all we have ever wanted."

I shout her name, and try to grab onto her but it's futile. I swipe through empty air. In the distance, I see my life - our life. I watch it break off in chunks and crash into the evaporating ocean. For the first time, I feel the veil of dreams lifting. "Arthur Gibson, wake up. Wake up."

Hitomi looks concerned as I sit up and she checks my pulse. "How long have I been out?"

"Half an hour. After you fell into a hypnotic state, I followed your directions with your suitcase. I was worried; your body started to twitch and jerk the last five minutes. Your time was up by then but I couldn't wake you from the trance." She sinks back down on the floor and blows her bangs back. "You should have told me that would be a possibility."

"I would have, but I didn't know that would happen either. Don't look at me that way. Dream sharing is a frontier - this is how research is conducted."

"I won't help you do that again."

We stand up. "I won't do that again."

She turns back at me. "Did you find what you were looking for?"

"To be honest, I don't know what I found."

"Did it help, at least?"

Did it help, indeed? I'm not sure whether I can give her the clear answer she's hoping for. I want to say yes. I want to say no. Neither fits. But help or not, whether I have found any truth or resolution, I know what I want. I can't lose any more days holding back. I suddenly have a purpose again and now I can barely contain myself from running at top speed towards it.

AN: "Bertie" is a shout out to The King's Speech, which I saw last week and absolutely loved. I can see Eames being a Bertie, anyway. Hope you enjoyed the chapter. I was stuck awhile trying to figure how to make it all work.