For dinner that night, Sara prepared grilled salmon and tossed a salad. The fish was sprinkled with just enough salt and had a hint of lemon flavoring. On the first bite, Gil thought that he was in heaven. There were also bread sticks and they each had a glass of wine. At first, Gil was hesitant to let her open the bottle, but he figured they both needed to relax.

"This is so much better than the food I was being fed at the hospital," Gil said as he sopped up the last of the salad dressing with his bread.

Sara smiled. "I am glad you liked it,"" she said. "It's a lot better for you."

While Sara took their plates to the kitchen, Gil leaned back into his pillows and sighed. "So," he asked. "What happened to my classes at UCLA?"

Sara finished scrapping the leftover fish into a dog bowl and looked back at him. "I took care of it," she said. "You keep your papers well organized. I was able to give your final exams early."

Gil nodded. "What about your job?" he asked.

Sara shrugged. "It wasn't a big deal," she said. "I found a substitute, but I start back tomorrow. My school doesn't let out for another week."

She opened the backdoor and a furry boxer bounded in. When he saw Gil he made a beeline and obediently sat at his feet. Gil read the dogs tags and found that his name was 'Hank'. He gave the dog a pat and tried to shoo him away. Hank obediently turned, bounded into a bedroom, and then returned with a rather unfortunate looking tennis ball.

Sara smiled and laughed her familiar, smoky laugh. "He wants you to throw it," she said.

Gil tugged the ball out of the dog's mouth and tossed it into the hallway, where it bounced and disappeared. Hank scrambled after it. After what sounded like a brief struggle, he emerged with the ball. Sara took it from him and placed on the bookshelf.

"Daddy doesn't feel good," she said, rubbing the dog's furry head.

"Who named him 'Hank'?" Gil asked.

"You did," Sara said. "You named him after Hank Sauer, the slugger for the Chicago Cubs."

Gil chuckled. "That sounds like me," he said. "I named my tarantula after Stevie Wonder."

Sara nodded. "Yes, I remember 'Little Stevie'," she said.

Gil scratched his beard. There wasn't really anything that he could think of to tell her that she probably didn't already know. In the kitchen, Sara finished loading the dishwasher and turned out the light. She disappeared for a moment, but then reemerged from the bedroom wearing a pair of boy shorts and a T-shirt. The T-shirt looked to be a little too tight and Gil contemplated about asking her to change. She padded to the couch with her glass of wine and took a seat beside him.

"Is there anything you want to talk about?" she asked, cocking her head to the side and looking at him intently.

Gil looked at her sideways. "Do we have a good marriage?" he asked.

Sara laid her head back against the couch. "I think we do," she said. "We've had our ups and downs, but we always pull out of it unscathed."

"What about this," he asked. "Do you think our marriage was strong enough to make it through something like this?"

Just because Gil didn't remember loving or marrying Sara, didn't mean he wanted to ruin a family. There was tangible proof that they had had a child together, but whether they could make it work was a different story. Sara took a sip of her wine and changed the subject.

"Are you comfortable?" she asked, her voice changing to a tone that Gil wasn't familiar with.

Gil nodded. "Yeah," he said. "I'm fine."

"Good," Sara whispered.

Sara let her foot drop and she seductively caressed Gil's calf. She relished the feel of his fine hairs against her soft foot and sighed. A week ago she feared that she would never be able to see or touch him ever again. The pain of almost losing him was overwhelming and she wanted to celebrate the fact that he was alive.

"Sara," Gil said. "I can't-"

Sara set her glass of wine on the coffee table in front of them and brought her lips to his neck. She kissed him gently, letting her tongue taste his salty skin. "Shh," she whispered into his ear.

Gil's heart was pounding. "Sara, I can't," he said as he pulled away.

Sara pulled back and looked into his eyes. The blue eyes that looked back didn't mirror the desires and feelings of love that she had, they showed confusion. Sara bit her trembling lip.

"Just relax," She said. "I'll make you feel better."

Gil put his hand on her shoulder. "Sara," he said. "I don't know what to do about this."

Sara couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the situation. She stood angrily and carried her glass of wine to the kitchen. Slowly she poured it down the sink, as if the liquid going down the drain were symbolic.

"I'm sorry," she said. "I don't how to act around you anymore."

Gil felt as if he had been cast into a dark abyss without a rope. He wanted Sara to feel better, but he didn't know how to help her. He never enjoyed seeing her cry and he always felt powerless when it came to her.

"I never imagined this would happen to me," he said. "I don't… I don't know what to do."

Sara brushed her hair out of her eyes. "Can't you just simply look around you and conclude that we had a life?" she said. "Gil, we made a child. You loved her more than anything."

"I don't doubt I loved her," Gil said. "It's natural for a man to love his children."

Sara felt as if she had been slapped in the face. "But you doubt you loved me?" she asked.

Gil shrugged. "I don't know, Sara," he said. "For all I know we could have been going through a divorce."

Sara scoffed. "You're acting like the same damn fool I knew eight years ago!" she shouted at him.

Gil looked at her, surprised that she had raised her voice to that octave. "What is that supposed to mean!?" he asked.

"It means that I 'm not going to beat around the bush with you, Gil," Sara said. "You were good at your job, but when it came to your personal life, you were blundering idiot!" She paused and looked him directly in the eye. "You never stopped to notice that I had feelings for you."

"I noticed," Gil replied. "I also noticed that you were so emotionally unstable at work I regretted asking you to come to Vegas!"

Sara brushed her tears away. "Thanks for telling me now," she said. "It certainly fixes things."

Gil pushed her comments to the side. "I should have listened to Catherine," Gil said. "She said you connected with the victims too often. I should have known."

Sara pulled open a drawer in the kitchen and withdrew a black, leather-bond address book. She opened it to 'W', found Catherine's name, and thrust it at Gil. "Call her," she said. "Have a chat."

Gil looked at the clock. "It's nine O'clock," he said.

Sara turned to head to the bedroom. "Then do it in the morning!" She said as she slammed the door.

O~O

Gil tossed and turned on the sofa, trying to sleep comfortably. Whichever way he turned, he was in pain. He thought about asking if he could sleep somewhere else, but after arguing with Sara he didn't want to talk to her. Finally he drifted off, but awoke hours later with feverish pain. He struggled to sit up and clicked on the lamp to look for his pills. Dr. Stogner had said that his vision would be blurred when he woke up for a while, but that it would pass. Gil rested his head on the back of the couch, hoping that his vision would return to normal. The longer he waited, the more his head swam. Nausea churned in his stomach and threatened to come up. Finally, he could take the pain no more.

"Sara!" he called.

Hank padded into the living room, his nails making a clicking sound on the hard wood. He looked up at Gil, licked his hand, and whimpered. A sharp pain in Gil's left temple sent a bolt of lightning to his stomach.

"Sara!" he called again.

Gil heard shuffling in the bedroom and the door opened. Though he couldn't see her plainly, Gil could make out Sara's form standing in the doorway.

"What do you need?" she asked in a sleepy-concerned voice.

"Pain," Gil said. "I'm in so much pain."

Sara acted quickly. She grabbed his bottle from off of the coffee table and put two pills in his hand. She offered him a fresh glass of water and waited as he gulped them down.

"Gil," she said. "You're soaked with sweat. You can't sleep in those clothes."

Sara disappeared into the bedroom and emerged with some of his clothes. Gil felt feverish all over, but he was cold.

"I'm going to strip you down," Sara said. "But I've seen it all. So don't worry about being modest."

Carefully, she pulled his shirt over his head. The air from the room hit his bare skin and felt like an ice cube. Sara wiped his chest off, trying to dry of some of the sweat. Clumsily she pulled a new T-shirt over his head and Gil felt a little better.

"You always sweat like a pig," Sara commented as she cautiously pulled his pants down his legs.

Gil couldn't argue with her; he had always sweated profusely. "Thank you," he said to her. "I didn't mean to wake you."

Sara sighed and gathered the soiled clothes. "Gil, despite what you remember, I took a vow to love you 'for better or worse'," she said. "And despite what you think… I love you."

Gil waited while she carried the dirty laundry to the wash-room. When she returned, she helped him to stand and walked him to the bedroom. The master bedroom was very large and spacious. There was a king-sized against the far wall and the ceiling was high. All the furniture was mahogany and, unlike the living room, the master bedroom was carpeted.

"You can sleep in here," she said as she pulled back the blankets and helped him climb into bed.

Sara set up the baby monitor in the bedroom so that she could here Gil if he called. Then she brought him all his pills, a fresh bottle of water, and an extra blanket. She felt like she was being a mother to a big baby, but she thought that it could have been worse. Gil could have been paralyzed or killed.

"You always call me when you need anything," she said as she turned out the light. "Goodnight."

O~O

Upstairs in the guest room, Sara couldn't sleep. It was a rare occasion that they slept in separate beds, but this was an exception. She ached with all her soul to have Gil next to her. His strong arms always held her lovingly, except for the three weeks before his accident. She thought perhaps, that it had been the baby that upset him, but they had talked about it and they decided to push it aside for Emily's sake. Quietly she cried to herself and Gil's question still echoed in her mind.

"Was our marriage strong enough to make it through something like this?" he had asked.

Sara feared the answer, because she honestly didn't know.

I hope you like this story, please leave a review because they are like hugging the story... that sounds weird.