A/N: Thanks everyone for reading, and to those who chose to leave reviews! I'm always open to reviews and thoughts and ideas, so please don't hold back. I may not respond, but that doesn't mean I'm not reading every review and taking things into concideration.

Enjoy!

Saint John's Hospital

Melrose, Bronx

The emergency room buzzed with activity as he entered through the sliding doors. Doctors and nurses hurried by him, chasing after a gurney that had just arrived with a gunshot victim. Concerned parents and sobbing children were spread out over the chairs in the waiting room. Among the children and parents where an array of people, some old, others young, some looking homeless or one paycheck away from being out on the street, others like they owned the hospital. All were talking, either to each other or on cell phones, or watching a television in the corner with a cartoon playing on it for the kids.

It all helped to intensify the ringing and pressure in his own head. The ringing had stopped shortly while he was in the bar, but had come back with a vengeance while in the taxi. He'd recovered some energy but he was tensed and in pain, mostly his head, leg, and his hand.

A nurse was on the phone as he approached the desk. She glanced up at him and then returned to the caller as she motioned for another nurse, a man, to help him. The man approached and as he got closer, he could read the nameplate on his scrubs; it was Ivan. He figured that was a first name.

"Can I help you," Ivan asked as he prepared to grab a clipboard with forms attached to it.

"Yeah, I uh…I can't-…I mean, I don't know who I am," he stumbled out as he tried to reason it out. No matter how he said it, it was hard.

Ivan stilled with the clipboard in his hand for a moment and then dropped it on the counter in front of him. "Fill out these forms and have a seat."

He looked down at the clipboard and then back up at Ivan. "How am I supposed to fill this out?"

Ivan pulled out a pen and handed it out for him to take.

Staring hard at the man, he leaned on the counter as he stated a little more firmly, "I'm not-…I don't know who I am."

Ivan smirked a little before picking up the clipboard and putting the pen away. "Okay, Mr. John Doe, have a seat and someone will be with you shortly."

"How shortly?"

Ivan gave him a look as he said, "For a man claiming amnesia, I doubt you have somewhere you have to be. Have a seat."

Sighing in annoyance, he turned and looked around for a seat. When he couldn't find one, he headed to a spot on the wall where he would be out of the way. After several minutes of leaning against the wall and observing everything around him, he felt impatient so he started to pace around the open floor. Minutes later, he was down the hall in search of the cafeteria or a soda machine, or coffee machine. He found the cafeteria down a long hallway and around two right turns. He grabbed a cup of coffee and bottle of water then returned to the waiting area.

A nurse called out a name and he watched as a woman with a newborn got up, leaving the chair. He bee-lined for it and got there in time to claim the chair before anyone else could. Leaning back in the chair, he tried to relax the tensing muscles in his body as he sipped on the coffee and waited.

"Okay, Mr. John Doe, follow me."

He looked up at Ivan as he took the last drink of coffee, emptying the cup, before getting out of the chair. They went to a room down the hall where his height, weight, blood pressure, and heart rate were taken, which were all high.

"Do you smoke?" Ivan asked him as he jotted down the numbers on a form.

"I smoked this morning, but…if you're asking if I'm a smoker, I don't know."

Ivan just glanced up at him, then asked, "Drink alcohol?"

"Not today," he said.

"How about yesterday?"

Rubbing at his head, he said, "I don't remember yesterday."

Ivan gave a nod and then proceeded to leave the room. "Stay here, a doctor will be in shortly."

Shortly, he sarcastically thought as he closed his eyes and rubbed his neck. Shortly to Ivan meant in a few hours. Getting up, he moved around the room, opening drawers and messing with the equipment until the door opened again and a woman entered dressed in a white coat. He stilled with his hand on the thermometer as their eyes locked. Then, holding it up, he said, "I was about to take my temperature. Ivan missed that part of the examination."

"Do you feel hot?" she asked as she entered the room and shut the door.

"Not exactly."

The doctor sighed but in a good-natured way before gesturing for him to continue what he was doing. While he stuck the thermometer in his mouth, she told him, "I'm Doctor Kendal. So, you're here because you have no memory?"

He gave a nod before taking the thermometer out and checked it. "Ninety-nine point seven. Not exactly a fever, but it's a little too high. Doctor Kendal," he said as he approached her, crossing his arms as he did so, "you don't believe me, do you?"

Instead of taking any offense to that accusation, she gave him a soft smile and said, "No, I don't. Since January, we've had thirty-six people come in claiming amnesia. Do you know how many of them were actually real? None. Some were mentally ill, others just wanted to have an excuse for the hit-and-run they were involved in. Others wanted the attention."

"I get that, okay. I know that this isn't…It's not very common. In fact, what I'm experiencing is extremely rare-"

"And what are you experiencing?" she asked in confusion.

"This type of retrograde amnesia, okay, where all of my life's memories are, are…nonexistent. I have no sense of identity. And…" he sighed in frustration as he looked around the room. "And I have no idea why or how it happened."

"Okay," she said as she pointed to the chair. "Cognitive thinking isn't impaired, just your memory. Why don't you have a seat and we'll see what we can find out."

He felt like he was being pulled around by strings but he did as the doctor asked and sat down.

Dr. Kendal pulled up another chair and sat across from him and asked, "Let's start at the beginning. What do you remember?"

Rubbing at his head, he said, "This morning. I uh, I woke up on the floor."

"At your home?"

"No, it…It was a motel room." He leaned back in the chair as he stared at the ceiling, getting his thoughts in order among the pressure and ringing in his head. "Since I was on the floor, I could've fallen out of the bed. I remember…my jaw hurt and I had the taste of blood in my mouth. I was also dehydrated. The, uh, the person at the desk I talked to said I'd been there for two days. I don't remember those two days or anything about my life before this morning." He swallowed around the sudden dryness of his throat and reached for the water bottle he'd brought into the room with him. After taking a sip, he said, "I thought that I'd been drinking, I felt hung-over…but, I didn't have the taste of alcohol in my mouth. I didn't smell it on my breath either."

The doctor wrote something down on a clipboard and then asked, "Anything else you remember or would like to add?"

Sighing, he said, "A ringing…in my head. And, a, uh, a pressure."

"Is it constant?"

"The pressure is, but the ringing comes and goes."

"Anything else?" she asked after writing that down.

He shook his head as he continued to look up at the ceiling.

"Okay. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to order blood tests. You could have injected something or were given a drug that could have caused this. I'm also going to order a x-ray, MRI and CT-scan, make sure you didn't receive a concussion from the fall. And I'm going to inform the police. They can get your statement, take your prints, and check missing persons." She looked at him for a response and when she didn't get one, Kendal smiled a little and got up.

"What's that for?" he couldn't help but wonder as she went to leave the room.

"What?" she asked.

He gestured as he said, "The smile."

Hesitating for a moment, she answered, "Whenever I accuse someone claiming amnesia of possibly doing drugs or being given drugs, with the added information of calling the cops, they flip out and start raving about never doing anything like that."

He smiled back as he shook his head, "Thus, giving themselves away to be liars."

"Exactly. I'll send Ivan in to get blood samples."

After the doctor was gone and he was alone in the room, he leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes thinking that it was going to be a long day.

Major Case Squad

There's nothing we can do. Deakins words echoed in her head as she stared down at the file in front of her. The Caleb Cunningham case wasn't officially closed, but with his death they could start closing out the files on his crime spree. Most notably, the murder of his mother. SVU was handling the closing of the Patterson case; however, the aftermath of the chaos created by Caleb wasn't over and, she suspected, it wouldn't be for quite a long time.

What couldn't be closed was the murder of ADA Gardner. As far as the DA was concerned, it was still open and currently being handled by herself and Logan. Despite the mounted pressure in finding his killer, and believing more and more that it was done by Nicole, or Caleb, or the both of them together, it was fading fast. With Caleb's death, they were at a standstill in their investigation. Sure, the CSIs were going over Gardner's house with a fine-tooth comb and all the equipment and chemicals they could muster, but so far they've found nothing.

And now, through the midst of all the dust that had gathered, Bobby was AWOL. He'd jumped ship and cut off all communication. She was worried yes, but she was also furious. He'd left her high and dry without a word...She could just...

"Eames, you might want to relax that hand before-"

The pencil she'd been holding snapped as she glanced up at Logan. Dropping the two pieces to the desk, she pushed her chair back with a force and headed to the break room; she needed to calm down.

Taking out her cell, she called Bobby's number. With it going straight to voicemail again, she cursed and hung up. Movement caught her eyes out in the squad room and she turned to see Deakins walking by her desk. He gave it a quick two-tap before heading for his office. That was one of his signals to them that he wanted them in his office, now. And whatever he had to say, it wasn't going to be pleasant.

Logan got up to follow as she left the break room, also to follow. Once inside the office, she shut the door because Deakins was too busy taking off his overcoat. He'd been gone for most of the morning, having left right after her.

Deakins reached up and did something he hadn't done in years, he undid his tie and pulled it off before rolling up his sleeves. The man looked worn down and beat; it made her tense up and cross her arms as she looked over at Logan. He was also on edge as he tensed his jaw and stayed standing, waiting for the shoe to drop.

Sitting down at his desk, Deakins glanced up at them and said, "They found Goren's car."

Her back tensed as she eyed her Captain. That wasn't what she'd been expecting. They found Bobby's car? So, where was Bobby? Before she could open her mouth to ask that question, Deakins continued.

"It was left abandoned in a parking lot off the Cross Bronx Expressway, in Highbridge."

"Highbridge? How in the hell was the car recovered in one piece?" Logan asked in disbelief. "It should've been stripped all the way down to the undercarriage and scattered all over the five boroughs by now."

"The alarm was blaring when they arrived on scene," Deakins told him. "My guess is that no one thought the owner wasn't coming back for it until today and when they went to jack it, the alarm sounded which alerted the unit passing by."

"Is the 44th handling it?" she finally asked as she found her voice.

"As of now they are. If anything is found indicating foul play, the Chief will hand it over to us." Deakins let out a breath then looked directly at her. "Any reason why Goren would be in that area of the Bronx?"

Alex set her jaw as she thought about it. She thought of the route Bobby would take when coming back from visiting his mom upstate. "The last I talked to him, he was visiting his mom. He would have taken Interstate 684 the whole way there from 95. Coming back is a different story depending on how he felt after the visit and where he wanted to drive to. He would sometimes take the long way, going into Manhattan. He could've been trying to cut through the Bronx, taking Expressway to go to Queens. One of his friends lives in Long Island City," she said with a shrug.

It was hard to tell with Bobby, she thought, the man was so unpredictable at times; especially when he was in such a dark place.

"For all I know, Captain, he was just driving without a thought in his head as to where he was going," Alex finished after giving it some thought. That was Bobby. One of the things he did to think or to get away from something, was to get into his car and just go.

"He do that a lot?" Logan asked.

Alex glanced up at him and gave a curt nod. More than she would like. He would rather do that than to sit down and talk it out with her.

Deakins stayed leaning on his desk as he let her talk. He wasn't telling her everything, she knew. So she waited him out. The other shoe was about to drop; she could feel it. Taking a breath, he said, "Because of this latest development, Goren is considered a person of interest to the NYPD concerning the murder of Caleb Cunningham. A statewide APB has been issued."

"You can't be serious," she suddenly snapped in anger and disbelief.

Her Captain could barely look at her as he continued, "We don't have a choice in this matter, Eames. He's missing. I just came from a meeting with the brass and DA Jack McCoy. They're making it public; a press conference has been scheduled. It'll air on this evenings news. I argued for us to be involved, all the Chief could offer was that you would be the detective called if someone spots Goren. I don't want some cop who doesn't know him to try and bring him in if-"

Before he could finish, she opened the door and left the office.

"Eames!" Logan called after her as she went to her desk and grabbed up her belongings. "Eames."

"I can't stay here and listen to this, Logan."

"You think it's easy for me to hear?" he replied back as he reached to stop her.

She pulled back and stood her ground as she told him, "I don't know, Logan, is it? You're the only who's all the time saying how you and Bobby were just partners and nothing more."

Logan backed down and watched as she grabbed her coat to leave. "Just because we're not friends doesn't mean I don't care. This is bullshit, okay. We all know it, so why are you running away?"

"I'm not!" she said as she pulled on her coat.

"Then where are you going?"

Alex grabbed the keys off her desk as she told him, "Where'd you think? The 44th." As she started down the hall, she heard Logan behind her.

"Hey, wait up!"

Logan met her at the elevator as he was still struggling to pull on his overcoat. "This isn't too smart, Eames."

"Well, Logan, sometimes in this job you've got to take some risks."

"Oh, yeah, says who?"

"For one, Bobby," she told him as stepped into the elevator with him getting on right behind her.

"Yeah, I've been down that slippery slope with him before," Logan told her as the doors closed.

"And?"

Logan glanced over at her as he said, "And it got me here. Risks, I'm willing to take, just as long as I don't end up back on Staten Island."

Saint John's Hospital

In-between being scanned, x-rayed, having his DNA and fingerprints taken and four tubes of blood drained from his body, he had to endure two police officers who obviously either didn't believe him or didn't want to be there as they took his statement. One of the officers, McNeil, didn't say a word unless it was some smartass comment to his relaying of events. Halfway through the interview, he wanted to knock the cop's teeth out.

"So, let me get this straight. You wake up naked in a motel room with no ID and no memory of your entire life, and the first thing you do is get dressed, leave the motel, and go get breakfast?"

The way Officer Ellis asked that, like he was having a hard time believing it, made his jaw twitch. Taking a breath, he eyed the officer as he told him, yet again, "Yes."

"How come you didn't call the police when you first awoke?"

Giving a shrug, he said, "I knew if I came here to get checked out, they would call you for me. Besides, I don't have a phone."

"You could'a used the one at the motel. The Royal, is that right?"

Rubbing his head, and feeling the growing pressure, he gave a nod. "Yes, officer, the Royal," then without thinking about it, he said, "Has anybody told you that you're obtuse?"

Officer Ellis stared at him and then said, "I'm what?"

"Obtuse. It means slow to understand…"

"Hey, pal," McNeil said as he stepped up to him; prepared to defend his partner and probably to also keep his partner from doing something rash. "You better watch it-"

"Or what? Are you going to arrest me for having an opinion? Look, I don't care if you believe me or not as long as you get my statement and find out who I am." He looked back at Officer Ellis as he asked, "Are we done?"

"Yea, we're done. C'mon, let's get outta here."

Officer McNeil followed his partner out but he could still hear what was said as they started down the hall.

"Guy's probably lying anyway. He got his rocks off with some hooker and now he claiming this amnesia bullshit because she took him for his money….probably married too."

Their voices started to fade the further they got away but he felt his anger grip him hard as he realized that no one was believing him. He had to admit though, he had a hard time believing his own damn self. Amnesia wasn't a common occurrence, and he could image how many people who had done bad things in their lives trying to use it as an excuse to get away with it.

However, for him it wasn't an excuse. It was real.

He had no idea who he was. He had no memory of his life, no identity to cling to, or no beliefs or morals to govern himself by. He was just there. A man, a body, a mind, but with no history. No foundation to build upon. No walls to entrap himself. Nothing but the wonder and the fears and the anger and pain of not knowing.

What if he never regained his memory? What if he never found out who he was?

Getting up out of the chair he'd been sitting in, he left the private room the doctor had assigned him to and started down the hallway. He couldn't continue to stay sitting. He needed to move and to think and to remember. It was all so frustrating because he didn't know what to do.

What he did know was that the sense of smell was a great way to recover lost memory. How he knew that, he had no idea, but it seemed that his mind was filled with vast knowledge that was just there, ready to be explored.

Seeing, smelling, tasting, touching, all of his senses worked in helping to create memory and so far, nothing was helping. A hospital smelt like a hospital. Very sterile, very bland, yet very familiar. A hospital was unforgettable, he thought; once you've been in one, you never forgot it. Hospitals felt very common to him for some reason; it wasn't foreign or unique. It was almost so familiar that there was no distinction. No one absolute thing that stood out to spark a distinct memory.

Maybe that was the secret to recovering a memory; it wasn't to look for the familiar, but to look for that one unique thing, or smell, or taste that stood out from all the things that blended into one.

As he rounded a corner, hands stuffed in the pockets of the jeans he wore, he heard a woman talking. A newscaster informing the public of a man wanted for questioning by the police. Taking a glance up toward the woman speaking, he took a look at the television screen and froze.

All the air rushed out of his body at the image displayed on the screen. It was a photograph of a man in a suit and tie. A man who looked like him but who once had a life and a identity but now had nothing. Not even a name until that very moment.

Robert Goren. That was his name. He was Robert Goren. His relief was very short-lived as he read the number on the bottom of the screen. It was for the police hotline, and it was to be called if anyone had seen him. He felt the instant panic flare up in his chest. He was wanted by the police.

A nurse turned and grabbed a phone without taking her eyes off the television screen. He saw her, but she didn't see him. Taking a step back, he took one last look at the screen, at the two names, one his own and the other the detective to ask for, and then turned around and continued walking.

He didn't stop until he was away from the hospital and seated on a subway headed toward Manhattan. There was no reason as to why he felt he had to get out of the hospital, but he couldn't ignore the feeling in his gut that this was all wrong. He couldn't ignore the thoughts in his head either. The ones telling him that he had to figure this out on his own, and that he couldn't let himself be taken in by the police. He felt the impulses to search, to figure out the puzzle, and he was reluctant to let himself be restrained in doing so.

He didn't want to be helpless, especially since he didn't know if he could even trust the police. For all he knew, the police had him. For all he knew, he had done something so wrong and bad and horrible that he would be spending the rest of his life in prison.

Even though he had no memory of what happened, of what he did, he wasn't about to give himself up. That was the only thing that he could think of and that felt right for him to do. With no memory, his instincts were his only guide in this unknown life of his, and so far they hadn't let him down. His instinct told him to get to Manhattan, to call the number, and to talk to this Detective Eames.

And that was what he was planning on doing.

TBC…