He's standing in his childhood home, rolling out a circle of dough and laughing uninhibitedly while his mother dances around the kitchen and slices apples, the old-fashioned radio on the window sill tinkling out a familiar tune. Everything's just like he remembered- the pale yellow wallpaper, the lemon tree framed outside the window, his mom's paisley apron. The dough is chilled, the flour feather soft, the cinnamon a pleasant, fragrant burn in his nose. The sky is a cloudless pale blue and he thinks he can hear birds chirping in the yard if he listens close enough. Perhaps it's this surreal sense of perfection that makes him question the reality of his situation, but suddenly he notices that he can reach the counter with no effort, that his hands are calloused and over-sized, that when he laughs his voice is deep enough to rumble in his chest. The last time he was with his mother in this kitchen he could barely see over the tops of the bar, needed his own special rolling pin. The second he realized he doesn't belong everything seems to slip away, this gradual forgetting, like sand through an hourglass.

It feels like it takes forever, like he watches as each piece of the illusion melts and drains away, and yet, in the blink of an eye, he is in a different place altogether. Now he stands outside the red door of a cheap motel along the highway. The paint is peeling away; one of the numbers on the door has lost a nail and swings precariously on its single hinge. He can hear a couple having angry sex in the unit next door and in one above his head the tv is blaring, perhaps in an attempt to drown them out. He's clutching a piece of yellow legal paper, the pencil smeared so he can barely read it, listing this address, this very room number. He takes several deep breaths, trying to fight away his sudden nausea before rapping on the wood and listening to the commotion inside.

His mother's been sick for a long time now, but these last few months she's been confined to a hospital bed. It's hard to tell how many days she has left, and even then, some days she barely recognizes his face. He's not sure why he felt compelled to leave her now, to get this confrontation over that's been long overdue, but something in his gut pressed him on. After several locks rattle and he can hear the rasp of the chain being pulled away, the door opens just enough to shed light on the disheveled man inside. His face is pale and sweaty, the lower half covered in dingy, black stubble. He's wearing a wife-beater that's more grey than white now, a scratchy looking bathroom robe, and a pair of striped boxers that he's half falling out of.

Marcus grimaces at the sight, the stench, the image in his head of his father so discordant with the reality before him. A soldier who couldn't cope, no one begrudged his disappearance, held his inability to cope against him, but all the same, no one held on too tight when he pulled away either. It gets blurry here. The words they shout at each other are muffled and the argument seems disjointed, skipping from room to room, escalating to a fistfight in the parking lot. He can't remember how much of it is memory, how much of it is just the dream, but when he lays his unconscious father in the backseat of his car and pulls away into the blackness of the night, the scene shifts around him again.

He's in his uncle's house, his dad is in the other room raiding the fridge, while his mother is lying cold and silent in her bed. She'd been taken home two nights ago to be 'made as comfortable as possible' and you'd been on the road. She'd asked for him before she passed and he wasn't there. His uncle places a comforting hand on his shoulder and tries to pull him away from her bedside. Marcus could have been there for minutes or for hours, it isn't clear. But the touch startles him and he shoves his uncle away with all the anger and hatred he feels for himself. The older man doesn't have a hope for catching himself and hits the hope chest at the end of the bed, his hip cracking sickeningly.

Marcus stays frozen in place, the tears staunched by his own shock, his uncle passed out from the pain. When his dad comes in from the kitchen he's the one to call the ambulance, the one to try his uncle back into consciousness while Marcus just sits. For once in his life, the man in actually there for someone, when all Marcus could do was make things worse. It's something he can't bear. Not at this moment. He sees the bottle his dad left on the bedside table, takes it up, and swallows it down as fast as he can.

The scenery falls away again, into a dizzying spiral, a black hole just behind Marcus sucking it all up and leaving him here, alone. A haze of bright lights, indifferent faces, back alley gutters, whiz past him and he feels sick to his stomach. He loses his car, gets stabbed in the leg, passes out in a puddle of his own urine. A cool breeze breaks through the acrid hell he's being chained to and he's vomiting over the side of a dock. The freezing water splashes over his face and seems to sober him instantly. Some men are pointing and laughing, others shaking their head in disgust. One pushes off from where he's leaning against a docked boat and makes his way over, offering his hand and exchanging names. It's something old, something Marcus can't quite pronounce. He remembers it starts with a G.

The man looks familiar, and at that says he used to know Marcus' father. Fought with him in the war. Somehow he's taking it a whole hell of a lot better, and still not that well. He remembers Marcus, just a little, and wants to right by his brother in arms, he fixes the young man up, teaches him what he knows, locks him up in the boat's quarters during detox. Sometimes Marcus thinks he would rather die than go through this sober, but the man never gives up on him, never loses faith, and when he thinks he's ready, he lets Marcus go. There's a listing in the paper, a beat-up trawler listed for half of what it's worth. She's not as fancy as some of the boats out there, maybe not as reliable, but a ship like this, it'll be with a guy till the day he dies. So he decides to give himself another try, and as he walks down the pier, he starts to whistle a strange sort of melody…. He's heard it before, but it was out of place then too.

When the world falls away again he drops with it, but he doesn't scream. The sensation tosses his stomach and makes his muscles clench and when he opens up his eyes he is lying on his back in a bed, swaddled in blankets that are making him sweat.

"Hey buddy."

Marcus turns his head- too fast- and groans into his pillow, this world, the real one, spinning just as harshly as the others. Once Marcus gets everything to just stay put for a moment he open his eyes back up, the lids sticking together with gunk. Cottia is sitting on the floor in his living room, a patchwork quilt pulled lightly over her legs as she fiddles with something in her lap while simultaneously channel surfing.

"What time is it?" His voice is too loud and he grips at his head, grinding his teeth and cursing. This is something he'd hoped he'd never have to experience again.

"It's half-past one." She seems both amused and irritated by this and looks up from her tinkering to grimace at him. "Your breath is appalling. You should really do something about that before this conversation goes any further."

Marcus doesn't think that he could walk at the moment, let alone brave the kind of pain that standing at a sink and brushing his mouth will bring. But when Cottia turns resolutely away and makes a point of ignoring him, he figures he's going to have to do something. It takes about ten minutes to work up the courage to get to his feet, and he stares at his reflection in the mirror for another five. The sound of running water roars in his ears and makes him wince, but it's worth it for getting the stale, bitter taste out of his mouth. When he puts his toothbrush back in its holder he catches sight of the blue one next to it. Esca's.

Marcus doesn't know why he expected different, but he's genuinely surprised when he freezes again. He can't move, not an inch, even though all he wants to do is crumple to the ground and never get back up. Hot tears spill down his cheeks, but he makes no sound. After a while Cottia comes looking for him and at the sound of her footsteps he works up the courage to wipe his cheeks and blow his nose. By the time she opens the door he's moving around her to get out and back into the living room. "Why are you crying?"

Cottia follows him as he moves to the kitchen to try and get away from her, but she keeps trying to duck around his outstretched hand, and he hasn't had enough time to compose himself yet. "I'm not!" His voice breaks and he tries to cover it up by sticking his head in the fridge.

"Yes you are; I can tell." Her tone is gentle, but also firm, and he knows she's not going to let it drop. After a few seconds of silence she crosses her arms, and kicks him lightly in the shins. "Where's Esca?"

"Esca-" The words caught in Marcus' throat and he backpedaled, deciding away from the truth in a split second. "Esca had to go away for a while."

Her arms slowly unfold as the words sink in and they eventually drop to her sides. When Marcus chances a look back at her, her expression is carefully neutral. "That's why you're crying."

"No it's not." Marcus tries to sound gruff about it, to get her to let it go, but she's always had a knack for pushing too far. "I promise it's not."

"He's gone…" The only sound for a long while is Marcus getting out the ingredients for a sandwich. More for something to do with his hands, to keep his mind busy, than for any imagined appetite. "He must be away on sea business, but he'll be back you know." The way that she says it is so self-assured that Marcus feels his heart lifting without his permission. "He left something here, he'll be back for it."

Marcus pauses while slathering mayo over the bread and carefully sets the knife down. "You think? What could be so important as to bring him back?" He sounds fragile, Marcus knows it, but he's too tired to try and cover it up.

"I know it. He left his song." With that she turns away and Marcus watches as she rummages about in her quilt, freeing something from its tangles and holding it gently beneath her arm as she walks back. With a coy smile she puts Esca's music box on the table and pulls the key from a chain around her neck. "He left it with me, told me to keep it always and only let it out when you need it most." Her mouth dips into a little frown before she starts turning the key, careful not to turn too far. "I think you could use it now." When she lifts the lid the mechanisms slowly whir to life and the pedestal with the bird begins to turn. The notes tinkle out slowly, haphazard at first, but then the box seems to grow confident with itself and it… sings.

It sings a tune so familiar, so… haunting. Marcus nearly chokes on air, and he's thankful he put the knife down as his body spasms and the tears start to flow again. "It's real-"

Cottia smiles at him fondly, the same kind of smile she uses when she thinks he's being particularly thick-headed. "Of course it's real, it's Sigur Ros." She closes her eyes and begins to hum along, unaware of the panic attack that Marcus is only just fending off. Pulling at the collar of his sweater, still gasping for air he makes a dash for the door, rips it open and stumbles to the ground. The sun is too bright, the sea is too loud, and he feels like he's going to explode, but all he can think is that he left Esca. Cottia walks up behind him, and nudges his side with her foot. "You have to go after him, Marcus. Misery is easy, happiness you have to work at." He looks up at her, wiping the stinging wet from his eyes, always amazed by how much she sees. "You have unfinished sea business."

There's abandoned wreckage there, quite old from what you can tell. None of the original coloring is left, the metal turned orange and brown and red- made into something different by the sea. You take shelter beneath the hull, curling into yourself and avoiding the shallow tide pools in the rock. The clouds drift by as hours pass and you slip in and out of sleep. You are shivering, always shivering, and you think that maybe you already died, but you just don't know it yet. You could be this phantom essence, stuck in its dying moments, doomed to repeat them for eternity. You heard a story like that once, you think, and you chuckle at the irony of changing from one legend to another.

When you hear the churning of an engine nearby, you think it's something you concocted in your desperation. If you're not dead, you might be crazy. Though the two aren't really mutually exclusive. After a while the sound dies away, only to be replaced by frantic shouting minutes later. If your strain your ears you can just make it out over the roar of the waves. You're not sure what the voice is saying, but it's comforting to know you're not alone in this hell.

When the voice cuts off the engine starts in again and grows closer and closer, louder and louder. It sputters out when it sounds nearby and the hoarse shout reaches your ears again. It's not really much of a word, more just a beacon, calling out to see if there's any kind of response. You try not to make a sound, but as you scoot farther back, closer to the shell of the ship, you knock a stone loose and it clangs against the metal. The shout dies out mid-call and a short while you can hear grunts and curses as someone traverses the craggy formations surrounding this island.

The steps even out when the person reaches even ground and you pull into yourself as tightly as you can, tucking yourself into a shadow. The boots get closer, their steps hesitant, careful, searching, and eventually they come into sight around the bend of the ship. You see him long before he spots you, but you don't make a sound. It was desperate to think that he wouldn't spot you out, but he does, and picks his way towards you warily, keeping one eye on his footing and the other on your form.

You think he's close enough to hear, so you start to speak, but you don't go above a whisper. "When the storm rose up, they slipped into the sea- one by one. I thought that I could join them."

Marcus' eyes are sad and as he approaches he takes off his jacket and folds it over your body, lowering himself into a crouch. "I came back to the lighthouse- I…. I looked all over for you. When I saw your clothes by the rocks, I thought-" Marcus chokes on his words and looks away for a long while, but he keeps his hands a steady presence on your shoulder.

"What changed your mind?" You have to ask, no matter what your condition is, you won't just take whoever will have you.

"Cottia showed me your box, played me your song." He snorts and wipes at his nose, laughing humorlessly.

You look away from him because right now you're not ready to forgive and you think his stupid face might rush you into trying. "It was never my song."

"So tell me, tell me the truth." Marcus says it like he's in the position to be making demands right now and you scoff at him, while reminding yourself not to look back.

"No." The answer is heavy and it must take him aback because it is silent for a long time afterwards. He rubs at your shoulders and tries to work the circulation back into your limbs. The both of you work on getting you standing, but you don't look at each other's faces, don't try and break the pregnant silence.

You manage to make it back on the boat again, Marcus helping to lower you into the quarters so you can wrap yourself in the bedding, try and chase away the bite of the cold. He leaves the hatch open, keep a hand on it while he starts to sail back again so that it doesn't fall shut even on accident. "Please?"

He says it so softly, so unexpectedly that it takes a minute to register, a few more for you to decide if you want to answer. You didn't think you'd be able to hold back, but you also don't want to concede so much to him so readily. "I'm a creature from the sea that gave up all he had, all he was, because he found a family that he liked." Marcus gives you a sour look, but keeps on steering, doesn't try to press the issue right now, though you don't think he'll forget it. "That's a truth. So take me home."

Marcus bites his lip and rubs the back of his neck, taking his eyes off the waters for a moment to look straight at you. "And where is that?"

He asks with such hope, with such a brittle faith in his eyes. "Where do you think?" You know that the words came out with more of a sting than you had intended, and you look away from his intense gaze. "You brought me back to life. I found a caravan, a family. Now it's gone, okay? That's the truth."

Marcus presses a tight fist to his lips before shrugging his shoulder and pulling it away. "Caravan's going nowhere." It's gruff, just barely contained, a little broken, and somehow just what you were looking for. You settle down into the blankets and let yourself drift off into a real sleep.

He'd avoided you the whole rest of the day you got back, and this morning. When you woke up, he was nowhere to be seen. You'd shared the pull-out couch with Cottia, leaving Marcus to his queen-sized mattress, to whatever churning mire his thoughts and emotions might be. You're not really mad anymore, but that doesn't mean you've forgotten, doesn't mean that things haven't irreversibly changed between you. Thinking about him- it's like pressing against a burn you forgot you had- blistering, raw, but you know that just means the skin's peeling, that things will be okay eventually.

You make yourself a cup of tea and sit with it on the porch, just for a moment trying to let everything fall away. Cottia's illness, Marcus' jagged conviction, the town's prejudice, your own shattered memory, it's all so much. The air is crisp and cold this morning, a cool burn tingling your lungs on every intake. The brine of the sea is at once fresh, awakening, and yet ancient, deep. The pads of your fingers catch on the splintered wood beneath you, still damp with morning moisture, the knots weathered smooth. Honey from the tea lingers on your taste buds, warm, amber, thick and slow and sweet. A tell-tale crunching makes your ears perk, your breath hitch, your eyes open.

Marcus is making his way up the path, a small woven basket in hand, filled to overflowing with small, plump blueberries. He's cozied up in a cream colored sweater, and that ridiculous knit cap. The tip of his nose is pink. There's sleep-dust caught in his eye lashes. His mouth quirks when he catches sight of you, a smile or a frown- you can't quite make out. He doesn't say anything when he takes the three short steps to your side, but holds open the door and stands aside until you get up and move inside.

You follow him to the kitchen and watch as he grabs a copper colander from a nail above the sink and pours the berries inside, washing them thoroughly before setting it aside. He snags a great glass bowl from the open shelves and ambles over to the pantry, spending a short time rummaging inside before moving to the fridge and doing the same. When he turns back around to face you the bowl is filled with several boxes and bags and glass containers. He sets them gently on the dining table and ushers you over, assigning small jobs in a quiet voice.

He watches as you measure out milk and yeast, leave it to froth and bubble before pouring it into the mound of flour, baking soda, salt, and eggs in the biggest bowl. Slowly he moves behind you, places his hands against your forearms and slides them down until they fit over yours. You feel ridiculous as he helps to knead it all together into a dough, but you get distracted as the ingredients begin to mesh, their scent like early mornings, chilled fall air, love confessions choked up in the back of a throat. The stick and pull of it as you press your knuckles in deep makes you laugh softly and you think you catch Marcus smiling.

After a little bit he covers the bowl and sets it on a window sill, stopping you from washing your hands. "Getting messy is part of the experience." It's the first words he says that aren't an instruction, that aren't utterly necessary. They're rough, hesitant, and over too quickly. Before you can respond he turns away, grabs another bowl, asks you for the sugar and oranges on the table. He doesn't use measuring cups like you did when he adds white and brown sugar, orange juice and zest to the berries. He tosses them with his hands and you're fascinated by the vibrant purple they stain his skin. He catches you staring and blushes, voice gruff when he asks you to grab a baking sheet from the cabinet beside the stove. You line it with parchment paper and sprinkle it with brown sugar, clumps of butter thrown on top.

The both of you finish at the same time and Marcus pulls the dough back down, splits it in two and hands you half. He shows you how to press your half of the berries and juice into the dough, and helps you fold it so that they're in the center. You each quarter your individual mounds, purple spilling out onto the table and into your fingers. Marcus picks up his four pieces and twists them to make rolls, the berries sticking to the ridges and the juice glazing the whole thing. Yours are more amorphous blobs, but you think it's the effort that counts.

By the time you get them in the oven the kitchen is a disaster, Marcus and you both covered in splotches of flour, stained blue-purple by the berries, skin sticky sweet from the sugar and citrus. You smile at each other across the room and with purpose in every movement Marcus draws close, pulls you tight, and kisses you. His hands are freezing and tacky against your face, but he smells like warmth and love and safety and so you kiss him back. It's tender and a little bit painful, but when he pulls back, you don't regret it.

The two of you startle out of this quiet reverie when the sounds of Cottia waking clash through the small house. Marcus turns away and starts cleaning up the spectacular mess and after a few seconds of watching, you retreat to the bathroom. You strip down and get into the shower, turning the water as hot as you can stand before getting in and washing away all the evidence that you helped this morning. The whole time you're just short of hyperventilating, but it's not panic. The awful pit in the center of your stomach is bred of uncertainty, that fear of falling and the sick thrill that comes when you're standing at the edge of a precipice.

Pulling yourself together you dry yourself off, spend entirely too long staring down your reflection in the mirror, and redress before heading back out. You're utterly unsurprised to see Cottia waiting patiently on Marcus' bed, legs crossed and expression bored before she catches sight of you. Smiling like the Cheshire Cat, and somehow making it seem sweet, she pats the empty space beside her and waits patiently for you to stumble over before settling her chin in her hand and pursing her lips. "So-"

It's one word, only two letters, but it somehow hooks into you, makes you itch and pulls a response. "So… what? I feel like you know something that I don't and it's most certainly your turn to share."

"Oh, honey. I know lots of things you don't." Cottia smiles demurely and flutters her eyelashes at you, that bizarre mixture of teasing and complete seriousness still present. "But I think I might know what it is that you're looking for." She leans over the bed, craning her neck to see into the kitchen down the hallway, before pulling you close. Your noses are nearly touching and her breath on your cheek is heavy. When she makes eye contact it's as though the two of you are sealed off from the rest of the world. "Marcus is in love with you, absolutely, beyond a doubt, head over heels. He won't be the first one to say it, not ever, but he'll feel it deeper and purer than you can imagine."

You swallow thickly and steal a glance over your shoulder, unreasonably afraid that he can hear you even though you're whispering. "You can't be sure of that! No one can." You wring your hands and look away from her intense gaze, trying to keep uncertainty from boiling over. "I know what you're trying to do. You want me to leave with him, to give it all up and run away like he wanted to… but I can't. I just can't do that."

"And why not?!" Cottia's voice is shrill, even for a whisper, and she grabs your chin, forces you to look at her. You blink away the tears that are forming and try not to be cowed by the anger on her face. "What are you so afraid of?"

Your lips quiver as you try to hold it all back, as you pent up all that you keep so carefully inside. You can hear Marcus move into the living room, just feet away, and fall onto his creaky couch. You wish, you desperately wish that you could go curl up next to him, bury your face in his shoulder as he rubs absentminded circles into your back. You wish you could act like there wasn't anything strange or terrible about the both of you.

"I'm afraid that it's not enough! Don't you see it?" You're not sure when you decided to tell her, but all the sudden the words just burst forth, and you can't get them back. You're yelling and slashing at the air and you feel like if the pain would just get sharp enough, you'd black out. "What if we leave and five years later he grows tired of me? What if I'm only as interesting as my mystery and when he can't solve it, he gets angry and frustrated and spiteful? What if he regrets choosing me over his lifelong dream? What if we stop saying 'I love you' and he starts drinking again and it's all my fault? What if I ruin his life? I couldn't bear it! I could never forgive myself." You're shaking and your throat is sore and you're consumed by the sensation of falling, falling, falling.

A pair of arms wraps tightly around you and holds you up, presses you tight to the chest against your back. Hot tears transfer to the back of your neck and slide beneath your shirt. Marcus sniffs loudly in your ear as he falls onto the bed beside you and pulls you into his lap. You haven't really yet registered that he's even here, that he probably just heard everything you said. You just let him hold you close, be there for you. It takes a while for the both of you to calm, to come back into yourselves. By the time you do, the both of you are alone in the bedroom and red-eyed and snot soaked and still hiccupping. You wipe at your eyes and try to keep from tumbling back into that hysteria as Marcus combs his fingers through your hair and brushes your lips against his own.

"Esca-" His voice breaks and he has to swallow thickly before he can start again. "You're everything I was always too afraid to hope for. You're better than a dream, you're real."

You don't regret a single second, and just now, you're starting to believe that neither does he.

It's been five months, three weeks, and six days, and you haven't looked back since. Sometimes you miss the cove, your little house, the wildflowers that grew out back, but you know that if you ever had it all to do again, you'd pick the very same route every time. These days the world just seems to fly by and you don't know how you ever could have believed that that little port town was all that mattered, all there was. Away from it all, it almost seems like you're living in an entirely different world, the one before a cruel fever dream from a year spent in sickness. What the three of you went through to try and make such a small amount of people happy- people that you didn't even love- it's ridiculous, and the effects of it are starting to wear off, to drain slowly from your bodies and minds- a bitter toxin made thinner with each passing mile.

Now, each sunrise brings a new horizon, new sights to see, new things to experience. The boat isn't much, but it's enough when you're living like gypsies, the sea the only home you ever need. It isn't what any of you envisioned, what you thought your lives would turn out to be, instead it's so, so much better. Those dreams that seemed so important to Marcus and to Cottia, only held them back, held them down, kept them away from the life they were meant to live. Though they're not quite at that point yet, it's getting easier to see the difference between what they want and what they need.

You still don't remember it all, only getting bits and pieces that don't mean much, not anymore, but you don't care so much, not really. The person that you used to be, if indeed you were, he's gone. All that matters is what's ahead, and that's what you try and tell everyone. Marcus and Cottia still ask, can't help but wonder if you're holding back, if you're amnesia is true, but you suppose that might fade with time, once there's more to remember than there is to forget.

Whatever the case is, he loves you, and that's what makes every morning worth it. Slowly floating back into consciousness, his breath warm on the back of your neck, his legs tangled with your own, his rough hands sitting heavy across your chest, it's what you live for.


A/N: Ta-da! :D I fought this ending for about three months all on its own. I do so hope that it was somewhat satisfying. :P please, Please, PLEASE lemme know what you thought. ^^