The rest of the day was a blur. Rudy put her through countless tests and examinations, most of which she experienced through a haze of pain medication. She didn't so much as cross paths with Oscar in the hall, and had to be reassured several times that he was doing fine.

The next morning she awoke to find him sitting by her bed, dressed in a clean tan suit, showered and groomed, and still a complete wreck – his face bruised and swollen, a fearsome black eye - the big white bandages on his hands finishing the picture.

"Good morning." he said, rising slowly to his feet.

"Well, there you are!" she murmured with a sleepy smile. "Where you been?"

"Surgery." he said, gingerly holding his hands up. "They had to reattach a couple of tendons."

"Oh…" she said, gently grasping his wrists, "are you going to be okay?"

"Rudy assures me I'll be a hundred percent – in a while. How are you?"

"Good." She yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Other than the bionics I'm just kind of beat up. Rudy says I should be walking in a day or two. You look terrible, by the way. You should be in bed."

"You don't look so hot yourself." he retorted amiably.

"Yes, but I am in bed, like a sensible person."

"I should add that you're the most beautiful wreck I've ever seen."

"A sensible wreck." she insisted.

"Russ and the team got Prochazka." Oscar said, deftly switching subjects. "And five of his people –the two guys we taped up in the meeting room, the two you took out by using me as a projectile, and that maid…the one you threw around in the utility room. We think that's all of them."

"Well, it appears that's a job well done." Jaime replied, warmed by a pleasant sense of satisfaction.

"I find it odd, that after all that training we put you through, it's your lady-wrestler techniques you use the most."

"Go with what works, that's what I say." she grinned. "Is that going to be the end of the weather control device?"

"Oh, you never know." Oscar replied with a rueful smile. "Before you know it I'll be at the prison trying to cut a deal with Prochazka in exchange for a shorter sentence."

"Oh, I hope not!"

"I hope not too."

"But you're off the hook aren't you? The President can't possibly see this as a failure on your part."

"I suppose not." Oscar smiled soberly and sat on the edge of the bed. "Uh…Steve will be here today."

"What?" Jaime gasped, butterflies suddenly flapping in her stomach. It was one thing to be able to get acquainted with her new/old reality at her leisure and in the privacy of her own mind – but it was quite another to have it standing in front of her. "Did you…?"

"No. He was coming anyway. He and Rudy are going over research for a project they're doing together."

"Well, are you…will you be here too?" She was suddenly anxious, and her immediate desire was to sit in his lap and screw her eyes shut.

"No, I'm off to see our pilot's family this morning, and then I go back to Washington."

"Oh…." Jaime said sadly. "I'm glad you're going to see them - I will too, once I'm out of here."

"I'll tell them. I'll send your condolences, and leave contact information with Rudy."

"You shouldn't go back so soon." she chided, nervously fastening his open cuff button.

He shook his head. "You know that wife of mine. I can hear her screaming all the way from Washington." It was Callahan who had made the remark that Oscar was married to the OSI, but Jaime was the one who had visualized this terrible wife for him, complete with crossed eyes, terrible table manners and foghorn voice. Jaime had dubbed her "Ossifinia" and she was often the butt of their jokes.

"Oh Oscar, you don't look ready to go back to work. You need rest."

"The OSI waits for no one."

Jaime bit her lip, her heart sinking. "You don't have to go…if you're thinking you need to leave because Steve is coming…"

"Listen," he said gently, "Steve will be here for several days. You just relax and take it slowly, okay? Don't put pressure on yourself."

She nodded uncertainly.

Oscar patted her hand lightly with one of his giant gauze mitts. "You're going to be okay, Babe. You've got the final piece to the puzzle. Life is going to make a lot more sense to you now." He kissed her cheek and held his face to hers for a long moment.

"Bye." he whispered as he pulled away. "See you soon."

"Promise?" Jaime asked, the word sounding more like a yelp than a question.

"Of course."

After Oscar left, she spent the next hour with her eyes glued shut, trying to sleep (and heal) but her brain was far too busy and anxious to let her drift off. It didn't help that in her time she had had enough bed rest for several lifetimes, and she hated the whole scene – the blue gowns, the hospital colors, the sounds –everything. Knowing her feelings all too well, Rudy had arranged for a wheelchair for her, and had explained to the nurses that Jaime had to do what Jaime had to do to get better. If that meant not staying in bed, so be it.

Leaning far out of bed she managed to grab the arm of the waiting wheelchair and pull it closer. Without too much trouble she lowered herself into it, wrestled herself into a robe (never easy from a seated position), and wheeled down the hall in search of Rudy's friendly face.

She found him in Lab A, peering at a file with Russ. In the moment before they registered her presence, Russ said, "I don't know if he'd do that for me." Rudy shook his head and they both laughed.

"Hey guys!" she said. "Whatcha doing?" Evidently she surprised them, as they jumped and looked vaguely guilty. Russ snapped the file shut.

"I was just coming to see you, Jaime." he said, greeting her with a cautious kiss on her unbruised cheek. "… to see how you're doing, of course, and I was also wondering…" he scrunched his face up apologetically, "if you might be up to talking about the crash ... to help us put the pieces together."

"You don't have to if you're not up to it." Rudy interjected, looking concerned.

"I'm fine." She meant it - she was pretty much in one piece and happy to be alive. Oddly, she felt very little trauma from the crash itself - weighing on her more was the return of her memory, but she wasn't about to mention that – not yet anyway. She could only take so much medical curiosity at once.

"How does your head feel?" Rudy persisted.

"A little achy but fine." She fixed him with a determined look and he laughed.

"Okay, okay!"

"So!" Jaime said, turning her attention resolutely to Russ. "Do you know why it happened?"

"Well, we're not a hundred percent sure yet, but I suspect it comes down to the fact that helicopters and bullets don't mix. I've got a forensics team out there right now."

"What can I do for you?"

"Just tell us what you remember."

One of the aggravating parts of any mission was the bureaucratic follow up. Even when all was well and every objective had been achieved, some poor sap was stuck making a detailed report of the whole thing, often requiring a week's work to put it together, and when it went wrong, the work doubled. It used to be her until she balked, which now usually meant that Russ was stuck with it. This time was different, of course – a man's life had been lost, so Jaime set her mind to the task with more gravity than usual. She recalled for them in detail the short period of time she remembered, ending somewhere before the crash - when the entire world was a sickening blur.

There was something about both Russ and Rudy that seemed overly inquisitive, given what she thought was the fairly obvious nature of the event. "Are there pictures? Can I look at them?" she asked, suddenly curious herself. She realized she wanted to know what she had missed, what Oscar had been left to contend with on his own.

"I don't know if you want to look Jaime…it's up to you." Rudy said. "It's not pretty."

"I didn't think it would be." They were both hovering, apparently conflicted about how much she would need or want to know.

"So…why am I getting the feeling that there's something you're not telling me? What's up with you two?"

"Sorry Jaime." Rudy said, "It's nothing critical really, we're just curious about something. Show her, Russ."

Russ handed her an eight by ten black and white photograph. For a minute she had a hard time deciphering the image – it was abstract, crumpled pattern - like a paper bag - completely unfamiliar - until she realized it was the inside of the helicopter.

"I think you were here." Russ said, circling his finger over one section. "Oscar told us you were strapped in, and he was not."

"That's right." Jaime found her face heating and her heart beating faster. Evidently she wasn't quite as calm about it as she thought she was.

"He is so lucky to be alive, being tossed around like that." Russ added. "The guy has horseshoes up his…" He apparently rethought the statement, and didn't finish the sentence.

"Well, our Jaime is a pretty lucky girl too." Rudy added. "As you can see, the area where you were sitting - behind the pilot - took a lot of the impact. And then at some point the rotor must have hit a something – likely a tree, and that caused the ceiling to buckle around you. You're very lucky it didn't fold into you. And then, if you look here…" he pointed to a lengthy gash in the metal, "that's where a rotor actually came in at you."

"Actually, this is kind of sickening." Jaime said, swallowing. The inferred violence was so profound –she could feel it even if she couldn't remember it. "So…what are you curious about?"

"Are you okay?" Russ asked.

She nodded and smiled weakly.

"Well, apart from the fact Oscar survived the crash," Rudy said, "we've been trying to figure out why his hands are in the state they are. "

"Yeah, that's what I want to know." Jaime said. Suddenly she felt stupid for not having asked Oscar herself…not even having demonstrated curiosity. She felt herself blush – she had been so captivated by the recovery of her memory it had made her selfish. "We didn't talk about it… he doesn't remember?"

"No."

"So…?"

Rudy pointed to a chunk of the ripped metal. "Right here, at the back of this mess - that's where you were strapped in. These dark spots…here and here…that's blood. Judging by the metal stresses and the blood, it looks to us as though this chunk of the wreck was crushed in on you – which is why your foot is in the state it is – but then it was actually pulled back. We think Oscar did that - so he could get you out."

"What?" Jaime gasped. "But that's not possible, is it? I mean…that's not just tin foil…that would be an effort even for me! Are you sure?"

"No… and we never will be, unless one of you remembers," Rudy admitted, "but it's well within the realm of possibility. Adrenaline, Jaime – it's an amazing thing. It's the only way we can explain what happened to him - how he shredded his hands and pulled most of the muscles in his arms and shoulders. His injuries are consistent with a monumental physical effort. The crash itself doesn't explain it."

Wow." Jaime said, very quietly.

"He must have been worried the thing would explode – and he wasn't going to going to leave you in there."

The three fell into a weighted silence. "Wow." she said again, biting her fingernail and frowning. "That's…amazing."

"You okay?" Rudy asked with a worried smile.

"Yes, yes. Just…wow…that's all."

-------

She was distracting herself by gossiping at the nursing station later that day when a couple of the women in white began elbowing each other and giggling. When Jaime turned around she saw why – it was Steve, strolling toward them, dressed in a tailored powder blue leisure suit and brown shirt, unbuttoned to the middle of that perfect hairy chest. Broad shouldered, slim hipped and incredibly fit, he was every girl's daydream. All the nurses at the station were transfixed. "He's perfect, Jaime." she recalled Callahan gushing one night at a restaurant. "Have you looked at him lately? C'mon! The man is a hunk!" Her heart pounded as he drew closer. The heavy brow lifted when he spotted her, and a half smile crept on to his face.

"Hello, ladies." he greeted the nurses, his manner diffident and a little shy.

"Hiya gorgeous." he said quietly, turning to Jaime.

It was amazing to see him as she now did – with all the blanks filled in, All the history that he knew was now hers too. It took effort not to just gawk. "Hiya handsome." she replied, feeling strange and tongue tied. "I…um…I'm not feeling too gorgeous, I gotta tell you."

"I think you look cute as a half raccoon." Steve said, brushing her black eye with his fingertip.

She laughed and bit her lip.

"You got time for a coffee?" Steve asked.

"Well, there's not much else on my calendar."

There followed a minor contest between them about whether Steve would push her wheelchair to the cafeteria or she would wheel herself – he tried to insist, but she lifted her chin in a way that signaled clearly to him that insisting further would only get him in trouble.

"So that was a bad crash you were in. Russ filled me in – are you okay? Really okay?" he asked, handing her black coffee in a styrofoam cup. She had agreed to let him get the coffee and bring it back to the table – but only after he pointed out that it was hellishly difficult to hold a cup and guide your own wheelchair at the same time.

"I'm really okay. I mean, it was horrible and everything, but I'm grateful I got out of there in one piece…or mostly one piece, anyway. Did you hear about Oscar – how he got me out of there?"

"I sure did." Steve answered, arching a brow. "I say we send him on missions from now on."

"I second that." Jaime found herself feeling increasingly ill at ease, and strangely unable to define her feelings about him. She was probably putting too much pressure on herself, just like Oscar told her not to – but she couldn't help it. How do we feel? How do we feel? Her brain kept inquiring, rifling frantically through its new memories, trying to dovetail past into present. "How have you been?" she said, trying not to stammer, "I haven't seen you in ages."

"I'm good." Steve replied. "Busy."

Somehow she had managed to forget until now that Steve was a man of few words.

Reaching up to run her hand through her hair, she inadvertently elbowed her coffee cup, and the dark liquid splashed across the table - Steve right in its path. In less than the blink of an eye he was on his feet, standing a safe distance away – and not a dark stain to be seen on his clothing.

"It's moments like this I appreciate the bionics." he quipped, and then he winked.

Quipping and winking - that was something Steve did a lot of, and Jaime had often wondered if it were some sort of defense. Now, with her brain in full working order, she knew he had always been that way. Watching him as he retrieved a fresh cup of coffee and a cloth to wipe up the mess, she wondered yet again how he really felt about her. Sometimes she thought she sensed a low, simmering resentment in him, but the next minute she would decide she was wrong. He was always kind and gracious - and slightly distant. Steve was impossible to read – he always had been. She thought of him returning home from his first semester in college, standing in the bathroom combing his hair into a perfect ducktail. No matter how she teased him and poked at him, she couldn't get a rise out of him. Now, since the accident, there was always a huge unacknowledged elephant in the room when they were together – for him, there had to be loss and sorrow and jealousy - and anger… how could he not be angry, having lost her twice - having borne witness to her idiotic romance with Michael Marchetti? Until now she had lived in the comfort of perfect ignorance - a big blank – except it wasn't a blank anymore. A lump of regret formed in her throat.

He ambled back to the table, a bemused smile on his face.

"Now this time," he said, handing her the fresh cup, " try to keep it in the cup until it goes into your mouth, okay?"

"Tall order." she said in a shaky voice. "Thanks." There was something about that first sip of coffee that saved her from bursting into tears. The hot, bitter liquid cut through and silenced the noise in her head and heart, and dissolved the lump in her throat. She had a blessed moment of clarity. This was just a conversation - that was all. What came before didn't matter. The missing parts of the picture had finally been filled in, but they didn't change anything. She had already grieved and regretted – even in that blank state. Forgotten or remembered, the past was over. She breathed deeply and smiled and looked him in the eye. "So have you talked to Mom and Dad lately?"