Forget Me Not

Finally finished this with substantial help from suerum. Ugh, a bit AU, but no overly so. Just pretend Franco wasn't around and you'll be fine. Characters aren't mine. Enjoy!

Chapter 3:

The trip to the ER went quickly enough. After some tests to verify the state of Spinelli's head, it was determined that he had a slight concussion. They gave him some light pain meds and sent him off with orders that someone keep an eye on him for the next twenty four hours. If he had been doomed to return to Kelly's, this would have been problematic, but since Jason had repealed his 'no-roommate' issue, it was easy enough to deal with.

They stopped off at Kelly's on the way back from the ER to grab Spinelli's stuff, and to assure Mike that the room would no longer be needed, which he seemed happy to hear.

Now they were back at the Penthouse and Jason had urged Spinelli to relax on the couch for the time being. After not having slept the night previous, it hadn't taken a lot of convincing – he'd fallen asleep within moments.

Jason checked on him every half hour, to make sure he was still alive and well and breathing. It was somewhere between checks seven and eight that there came a knock at the door.

He was admittedly concerned that it could be Sonny out for his own vengeance over Jason's renewed loyalties, but the voice that called out impatiently wasn't his.

"Jason, come on, I need to talk to you." Carly requested through the door, and he pulled it open. The room was dark, which was decidedly strange for nearly two in the afternoon. "What's-?"

He hushed her, and nodded toward the sleeping Spinelli. "Kitchen." He said quietly, and she followed behind him as he led the way. "Sonny didn't send you, did he?"

She shook her head, still looking confused. "What happened to Spinelli?"

"Sonny happened to Spinelli." He replied crossly, and his tone helpfully conveyed that he would not be elaborating on how Sonny had happened to Spinelli. "What are you doing here?"

"Ugh, Spinelli told me what was going on when I talked to him yesterday." She explained, as she claimed a chair. "I wanted to talk to you about it then, but Jax insisted that he didn't think telling you was a good idea, not if you didn't remember it, and I thought I agreed with him. But, then I didn't, so here I am."

He stared at her. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"You don't remember anything about Spinelli?" She asked him. "Not… not anything?"

"I'm starting to get bits and pieces back, but they don't always make sense. I remember… most of the wedding, I think. Fragments of conversations." Jason explained, as he leaned back against the counter. "But what are you talking about? Jax didn't want you to tell me something? Is everything okay with Michael and Morgan?"

"They're fine, Jase. Don't worry about them." Carly assured him. "This is about, well, you. And Spinelli."

Alarm and concern flared in Jason's chest, as if she were proposing that they were in some sort of potential danger. He felt compelled to go and check on Spinelli again, even though he had just done so eighteen minutes prior. "What about Spinelli?"

"A few days before you hit your head, you told me that you… thought you had feelings for Spinelli. Not in so many words, and not so straightforwardly, but that was the overall point. You said you'd broken up with Sam and you were thinking about telling him." She explained. "And as big of a surprise as all that was, you asked me not to say anything to anyone. I told Jax after Spinelli told me what had happened, because I didn't know what to do…"

Of everything he'd learned, both true and fallacious, concerning Spinelli in the last few days, this was by far the strangest piece of the puzzle provided to him. And yet, unlike the suspicious lies Sonny had offered him, it didn't seem all that unrealistic an idea.

"Jason?" She prompted, when met with his silent response.

A noise came from the direction of the living room, which prompted Jason into action. Ignoring her question, an added bonus to appeasing his irrational fears over Spinelli, he was up and out of the room in seconds.

***

Spinelli had woken to darkness surrounding him, but the blurry numbers on his watch told him it wasn't late at all, just after two in the afternoon. "Stone Cold?" He mumbled out, groggily, as his head spun in protest when he tried to sit up. "Nngh."

After a long moment of stillness, he dared to attempt shifting his weight again, this time making it from his previous position, sprawled out across the length of the couch to something that looked more or less like sitting. Another moment and he was standing, balanced with one hand on the arm of the sofa and the other prepared to grab the coffee table.

He was nearly certain that his own pain meds – which he had no qualms about taking, unlike Jason – were in the kitchen with his mentors, an orange soda also sounded like impending heaven. Goal in mind, he stumbled dizzily toward the kitchen.

"What about Spinelli?" Jason's voice sounded harsh and concerned as he said the words. It was enough to make Spinelli pause just outside the door to the kitchen, leaning heavily against the doorframe.

Who else was here? He hadn't heard the door, or the phone. What if it was Sonny and Jason was in danger?

"A few days before you hit your head, you told me that you…" Okay, Spinelli sighed in relief. It wasn't Sonny. Straining to hear, he forced himself to concentrate, which took far more effort than it rightly should have. "Thought you had feelings for Spinelli. Not in so many words, and not so straightforwardly, but that was the overall point. You said you'd broken up with Sam and you were thinking about telling him. And as big of a surprise as all that was, you asked…" She was still talking, but Spinelli's mind had gone blank on him. Between this most shocking revelation – that certainly better explained Jason's strange behavior prior to his head injury – and his own head injury, he'd had enough.

***

Seeing Spinelli lying on the ground was enough to send Jason into a rather extreme level of worried. Had Sonny gotten in, gotten to him somehow? Or was the concussion worse than it had appeared? These thoughts and more raced through his mind even as he leaned over his fallen roommate.

"Spinelli," he said, on his knees beside the younger. "Come on, wake up."

His words earned a mumbled , unintelligible reply of, "mmrnghn," which did nothing to appease Jason's mounting anxiety.

"Come on, wake up for me." He tried again, shaking Spinelli's shoulder lightly. And this time sleepy, clouded over, green eyes blinked up at him. He released a huge sigh of relief and the weight that had coiled in his stomach upon seeing Spinelli all sprawled out on the floor seemed to lift. "Good, good, you're okay?" Jason asked, brushing the hair away from Spinelli's face.

Even as Jason worked at helping him sit up again, Spinelli was staring around the room in confusion. "What… what happened?"

"You're not going to tell me you forgot who I am now, right?" Jason kidded, though he abruptly reverted to traditional stone-cold, seriousness. "You must have collapsed or something, I'll call Robin once we get you back to the couch." He levered the younger to his feet and maneuvered him over to the sofa once again. "You alright?"

Spinelli nodded. "Affirmative, Stone Cold, though this is a most importunate headache that assails your grasshopper."

Carly joined them in the living room, then. "Is there something I can do?" She asked, looking between Jason and Spinelli, perhaps for some sort of explanation for Spinelli's unexpected collapse, or for the deep, purple, bruise near his temple.

Jason shook his head, though. "I've got it." He assured her and she knew him well enough to get the unsaid message of 'so, you can go'.

"Okay, well. I hope you feel better, Spinelli." She said, nodding a good-bye as she headed for the door. "Call if you change your mind."

With her gone, Jason's attention was solely focused on Spinelli. He returned to the kitchen long enough to fetch a glass of water and one of the pills for Spinelli. "Take these," He instructed, even as he dialed Robin's number on his newly-replaced cell phone.

His eyes stayed on Spinelli while he spoke to her about what had happened. After some consideration, it was decided that, so long as nothing more occurred, and if Jason intensified his watch, Spinelli could stay at home. She also requested that Jason bring him in the following day to check up on him once more, just to be safe. With this information relayed, the call ended swiftly enough.

"Might the Jackal be able to go back to sleep now?" Spinelli requested, already leaning back against the sofa, his eyes already closed.

"For now." Jason agreed, as he claimed the chair adjacent to the occupied couch for himself. "I'll be here, and I'll wake you up in twenty minutes, alright?"

Spinelli nodded. "If you must."

Jason watched on as the younger's breathing evened out once again. Now that everything had been handled, he could let his mind focus on what Carly had told him. It would be so much easier if he could remember Spinelli, remember the big things, let alone the details, but all he had was flotsam and jetsam.

Being interested in Spinelli would have certainly explained the odd feelings he'd had over the past few days – how it had felt strange for Spinelli not to be here, even though that had been what he'd wanted, how he had put himself between Spinelli and Sonny, felt the need to avenge Sonny's actions against him. Maybe there was a reason behind it all.

"Spinelli," Jason said, when the twenty minutes had gone by. "Talk to me."

"Mm, 'm alive." Spinelli mumbled, forcing his eyes opened long enough to mollify Jason. "How come Stone Cold is allowed to check himself out against the advice of the medically inclined ones and ignore their orders, but you insist on waking me up and doing as told?"

"It's either me or the hospital, Spinelli." Jason answered firmly, but the old routine wasn't good enough this time. "C'mon, I want you to walk around with me for a minute first." Spinelli groaned in protest, but complied with Jason as he hauled him to his feet. He kept his hands on the younger's shoulders to keep him stable and guided him around the sofa a handful of times before settling him down again. "You can rest again, now."

***

The same process continued on for the rest of the afternoon and into the night, with Jason rousing him every twenty minutes and marching him around. Sometime around midnight, instead of the trips around the couch, Jason steered him upstairs instead.

"Where're we going?" He grumbled, leaning against Jason as they walked.

"You're sleeping in my room so I can keep an eye on you, and get some sleep, too." He explained, as his own headache had started up again.

"The Jackal overheard you conversing with the Valkyrie earlier." Spinelli admitted, as Jason led him into the room, and settled him on the bed. "Does Stone Cold suppose what she claimed was true?"

Jason shrugged, and sat down beside his protégé. "I don't remember. Maybe. If it was true, and I had told you, what would you have done?"

Spinelli took note, even with his concussed and sleep deprived brain, of the past tense of that question. If it –was- true. As in, it no longer was. "I confess I am equally unsure." He decided.

***

Spinelli had fallen asleep again not long after his last words, and Jason opted to do the same. He kept his cell phone in hand and set it's alarm to go off in thirty minutes, resigned to get a little bit of sleep before they had to go through the whole process again.

He'd only just laid his head down on the pillow when the memories assaulted him again, like they had the previous night – and by now he had realized that they weren't dreams, but actual events. He dreamed of finding Maxie cheating with Matt Hunter, of having to be the one to tell Spinelli of her latest indiscretion. He dreamed of breaking up with Sam, telling her that he had reasons but he wouldn't tell her what they were just yet. Dreamed of talking to Carly – and why he picked her over Sam or Robin he didn't know – about it, telling her that he was pretty sure that he was more than interested in Spinelli. And then he dreamed of walking through the park in the pouring down rain and some Irish goon sauntering up to him with a crowbar. He'd been thinking about Spinelli, how to keep him safe, how to make sure that nothing ever touched him, when the metal had struck his skull. He remembered Spinelli – in a kind of abstract, distant way – could hear his voice but not make out the words, feel hands on his chest, his neck, his arms, trying to get him to do something, remembered a hand squeezing onto his for dear life and sirens over head.

The buzzing of his alarm pulled him back to consciousness, but he found that not only were the new memories of recent events there, but also the details, the things he hadn't recalled. He remembered, all of it, somehow. Rather relieved by this news, he leaned over, shaking Spinelli softly. "Come on, time to get up." He declared, as he recalled of the certainty of his previously questionable feelings. Spinelli's actions since the attack had only seemed to solidify everything for him, really. "I remember now, and I think I know why I forgot you."

This wasn't right. Spinelli should have been awake by now. The gentle shaking was having no effect. There were no mumbled protests or attempts to evade his attempts at rousing him.

"Spinelli!" Louder, more insistent. "Spinelli, come on, wake up."

Nothing.

Panic, terror, alarm, dread, helplessness, all things Jason was not used to feeling.

The cell phone, still in his hand, was dialing in seconds, as Jason leaned over his protégé. He was breathing, he had a pulse, he was alive, just not awake. "Robin." He snapped into the phone when she answered him, sounding exhausted. "Robin, I can't get Spinelli to wake up."

"Get him in here now," she demanded.