AN: Hey, all! I'm going to New Zealand for a while so this will be the last chapter for a bit. But I will definitely resume the story when I get back. Enjoy!

Standard disclaimers apply and, despite due diligence, the inevitable mistakes are my fault.

Remembrance

Chapter Eleven: Jigsaw

Immediately after she pursed her lips to blow out the match, smoke plumed up to reach her nostrils. She inhaled the wisps, the scent acrid and fragrant all at once. Three candles, she counted, each placed on various surfaces throughout the room.

He'd be home soon, he'd only run to the market to get ice cream. She'd offered, but he'd been adamant about going himself.

As she left the bedroom, the satin of her robe skimming her thighs, she smiled at the thought of the past two days. They'd quickly nixed the idea of leaving Seattle to escape the rain. The weather didn't matter much when getting out of bed was a rare occurrence.

The fragments of prior unhappiness she'd remembered belonged to another life, another couple. They were long gone, replaced with new memories of a man to whom she couldn't possibly feel closer. She couldn't remember smiling more in her life--while that could have been because she couldn't remember most of her life, she had a feeling the sentiment would hold true sans the amnesia.

In fact, if their chemistry was any indication, they should have had sex more often because it certainly seemed to be a panacea.

Sex, she thought with a rueful smile. Sex whenever a look or a touch darkened their eyes and sent one of them reaching for the other. Sex whenever their fingertips brushed accidentally over food. Food. More like sustenance.

If she were honest with herself, she'd acknowledge the fact that sex was not, nor could it be, the foundation for an entire relationship. It was tenuous ground at best; thin ice waiting to transform the slightest break into a spider web and knock her off her precariously balanced feet.

If she were honest with herself, she'd admit that she was meshing the few known pieces of her life into a disjointed picture. She was shoving mismatched edges together like an impatient child, bending corners any way she could, all to escape the realization that she wasn't playing with all the relevant pieces.

But honesty wasn't fun. Mark was. So when some part of her sensed him in the hallway, she raced to open the front door.

He looked up, keys in hand, surprise in his brows as he took in her negligent pose near the doorway. Two rows of white teeth trapped a long-stemmed rose as she lifted an arm to lean against the frame.

He smiled, his eyes dropping down to the loose knot of her robe before traveling up to her flushed face and dancing eyes.

"Ouch." Her eyes widened in surprise and the words dislodged the stem of the flower. It tumbled to her bare feet.

"Thorn?" he guessed, closing the door behind him.

She nodded, her fingertips wiping a drop of smeared blood from her lips. "Damn," she laughed. "That was going to be sexy as hell." Dropping the pose, she used a tentative tongue to locate the wound.

Desire shot through his abdomen and arrowed down. He dropped the ice cream onto a nearby counter. "That was sexy as hell," he said, circling one arm around her waist to practically haul her into the closest room.

*****

One idle finger twined her straight hair around his fingers while she traced the palm lines of his free hand. Her head resting on his bare abdomen, it rose and fell in an even cadence with every breath he took.

As if a thought just occurred to her, she twisted her head to look at him. "What kind of ice cream did you get?"

He gave an indulgent smile, removing his hand from the cloud of her hair. "Mint chocolate chip."

As he'd predicted, she was up like a shot and he could hear the light slapping of her bare feet in the other room. When she returned, it was with an open carton in her hand and a spoon in her mouth.

She rolled her eyes upward as she came closer, pulling the spoon out. "Good call," she said around a melting bite.

He took the spoon and gouged out a bit before feeding it to her.

"You know what you should get?" Without waiting for an answer, she continued, "A zucchini."

He laughed. "A what?"

She gave him a look that clearly demonstrated he was being slow and she was being tolerant. "A zucchini," she repeated. When his face was blank, she explained, "You know, a tub that holds hot, swirling water?"

His eyes narrowed. "A Jacuzzi."

"That's what I said."

He just nodded, reaching for the ice cream. She pulled the carton out of reach.

"What?"

"Did I say anything?"

"What's with the face?"

"What face?"

"I said Jacuzzi."

"Okay."

Yet she still didn't relinquish the ice cream, twisting her upper body to keep it far away. "What did I say?"

"Zucchini."

She frowned. His smile waned. "It's just a side effect. It'll go away."

Her head bobbed in agreement. "I know, it's just…" She blew out her breath. "I could mean twenty-five milligrams of Lopressor, say grams, and kill someone."

"That's why you're taking some time off," he said, managing to reach the carton and set it on the nightstand.

She shot him an amused look. "Oh, is that why I'm taking time off?"

Mark shrugged. "There's that," he said. "And the fact that if you went to work, there'd be no one to have sex with me."

She laughed, leaning over to kiss his lips. Sticky with ice cream, she licked her own clean as she pulled away. Looking around the spare room, she asked, "What was this room before you had the bed delivered?"

He faltered in the process of licking the spoon. Clearing his throat, he said, "We talked about making it a study."

"I take it we don't have many guests."

He grinned, the action almost proud. "People don't like me."

She smiled back. "I like you."

"Yes, but you don't get to have your own bed." As if to prove his point, he came even closer to her, lifting one arm to fit her against the curve of his side.

She went willingly, scooting along the mattress. "So what should we do with the room now?"

She felt him shrug next to her. "We could still make it a study."

"For you?"

"For us."

She smiled. "We couldn't fit both of us in here. There's not enough room for two desks and chairs."

He tickled her ribs with his fingertips. "I could sit on the chair and you could sit on my lap."

"You're crazy."

"Probably," he agreed.

She shifted to get more comfortable next to him and felt something jab the skin of her arm. She frowned, sitting up and digging a hand around the sheets. When her fingers ran over a foreign object, she pulled it out.

The ring glinted between them and her eyes immediately sought his. She thought back to when she'd first stormed into the room, demanding answers and receiving patience in return. She thought about the way he'd kissed her that night, the ring forgotten as they'd held each other.

Now, with the damned circle of valuable metal and invaluable memories between them again, half of her wanted to hide the ring and go back to where they had been two minutes ago. The other half wanted to see his reaction play out.

He pinched it off her palm and held it up, inspecting it as if he hadn't been the one to pick it out. She tried to read his face, her lips curling inward as she gauged his stoic features. He revealed nothing, resting the ring on the nightstand after a long, silent moment.

"I'm going to take a shower," he said. She blinked at the abrupt segue. As if to soften the blow, he pressed a kiss against her forehead.

She didn't bother trying to convince him to stay. When his back crossed the doorway, she flopped back against the pillows, gathering one close to her chest.

The thin fabric held his scent and she inhaled, thinking if she breathed in hard enough maybe she'd absorb him. Between his clothes and his linen, her olfactory senses were working overtime lately.

She rolled over with the pillow and caught a glimpse of the ring on the stand. The lamp above it lent the jewelry an ethereal halo that was impossible to resist. She stretched out an arm to pick it up once again.

After making sure the doorway was still clear, she hesitated a moment before slipping it onto her third finger. She hadn't tried it on the night she had first discovered it in her jewelry box. It would have been wrong then, trying on the ring a stranger had bought for another stranger. But Mark wasn't a stranger…and neither was she, not anymore.

It glittered against her slender finger, a snug but perfect fit. The thumb of the same hand played with the platinum band, working the stone this way and that. Modeling the ring was borne out of sheer vanity, she knew that, but that didn't mean she couldn't admire the way it looked on her.

After a few moments had passed, she admitted to a feeling of disappointment. Some part of her, the part that didn't quite agree with all Mark had said about new beginnings, had hoped wearing his ring would grant her more pieces, add clarity to a disjointed puzzle.

She sighed; donning the ring hadn't jarred any memories. But, she soon realized, working the ring off her knuckle, taking it off sure as hell did.

AN: Please review!