Author's notes: Thank you to everyone for the amazing response to the last chapter, it was great to hear how invested you were in Patrick's recovery. I hope you enjoy this chapter, just one more to go.
I'm really not having a lot of writing time lately, so sorry for the delay in updating all my stories.
Doctor Armitage rushed to Jane's room upon hearing the nurse's tale. He opened the door to find Patrick out of bed searching the cupboard. He looked up at the doctor and demanded:
"Where are my clothes?"
Since it's obvious they're not in the cupboard, where they would normally be, the doctor suggested an alternative:
"Maybe Teresa.."
Patrick cut him off:
"You mean my wife."
Doctor Armitage nodded.
"Yes, your wife."
He moved further into the room and indicated towards the bed.
"Why don't you sit down for a moment so we can talk."
"I don't want to talk, I want to go home to my family. I've examined myself and I seem perfectly fine. I see no reason for me to be here."
The doctor pointed towards the bed once more.
"Since you have to wait for some clothes, let's take the opportunity to talk so I can make that diagnosis myself."
Patrick stared at him, his impatience clearly written on his face. The doctor tried again.
"Please humour me."
Patrick stared for a beat more, then jumped on to the bed.
"So what do you want to talk about Doc?"
The doctor pulled out a chair and sat down.
"You say that Teresa's your wife, do you remember that she is, or did you work it out?"
"I worked it out, then I remembered that she had a child..."
The doctor was surprised.
"She told you that?"
"No, it was plain to see that she's a Mother."
The doctor nodded.
"But I was wrong, she hasn't one child, she has two. No. We have two."
The doctor smiled.
"You do remember."
"A boy, called Austin, and a girl called Maddy."
"That's excellent. What's the last thing you remember outside of the hospital?"
Patrick pondered for a few moments.
"Being at the office, we were working a case."
"Which case?"
Patrick sighed impatiently:
"What difference does that make?"
"Just trying to gage how much you remember."
"It's a case involving some kind of bank fraud that led to murder, which is where we became involved."
The doctor nodded his head.
"That's very good. You went to question a witness and things went awry and you were shot in the head which resulted in some major memory loss. Do you remember it at all?"
Patrick closed his eyes, searching his memory palace, and finally shook his head.
"That's not unusual."
The doctor shifted in his chair and Jane looked at him sharply.
"What is it doc,? There's something you don't want to tell me"
"It's not that I don't want to tell you, but it'll be difficult for you."
"Then don't tell me."
The doctor rubbed his hands together, in a stalling tactic, as he decided how best to start. Patrick moved him along:
"Just out with it Doc. I'm a big boy. Whatever it is, it can't be that bad, I still have my wife and children."
The doctor sat up straight and studied his patient. The man's right, he's already been through the worse in his life, and he's certainly shown his strength. He folded his arms and jumped right in.
"It's been six months since you were shot."
The doctor watches Patrick carefully, the man recoils as if he's been shot once more. His voice comes out barely a whisper:
"Six months."
The doctor nodded his head.
"Have I been in a coma?"
Patrick shook his head in answer to his own question.
"No, I'm not ill enough for that. I would have woken up surrounded by machines and tubes."
Patrick's eyes were all over the place as if the room itself would give him the answers. The doctor drew back his attention:
"Look at me Patrick. Listen carefully. You woke up from surgery, just like this afternoon, unable to remember anything for the past twenty years. As far as you were concerned you were still living in Malibu with Angela and Charlotte. Unlike today, your memories didn't return with hours, they were slowly returning. Once you were well enough to leave the hospital, you went home with Teresa, you had no memory of her, or your children, but through videos and photographs you accepted that they were your family."
Patrick's slowly shook his head.
"I don't remember any of this. Why don't I remember?"
"You went in to work today for the first time, just to look around. Something happened and all your memories returned of the death of Angela and Charlotte, and your mind was unable to cope and it went in shut down."
As Patrick absorbed the information. He'd slowly shifted further onto the bed, and sat against the pillows.
"Will I ever remember the past six months?"
"The mind is unpredictable but I doubt it."
Patrick gave a slight depreciating smile:
"I guess six months is nothing compared to twenty years."
"No it isn't."
Patrick shook his head, still not quite believing what he's heard.
"I need to see my wife, and my children."
They both looked to the door as it opened, an auxiliary worker entered with a tray of food. The doctor stood up.
"I'll let you eat, and I will call Teresa and let her know what's happened."
He smiled:
"I'm sure she'll be in right away. I will also start your release paperwork so you can go home together. Do you have any questions?"
Patrick lifted up the lid covering his plate and grimaced.
"A million of them, but there doesn't seem to be any answers."
He pointed to his plate:
"Is this really food?"
The doctor smiled:
"You'll find it tastes better than it looks."
Patrick lifted up the plate of suspected food and sniffed it as the doctor closed the door, Patrick's words floating after him.
"That's not going to be hard."
Cho arrives at the Jane's home to find Teresa and the children already strapped in their car waiting for him. He's dropped everything and come right over the moment he'd received Teresa's phone call. Teresa unfastens her seat belt and jumps out the car to greet him. She gives him a hug.
"Thanks Kimball for coming so quickly."
She feels a little embarrassed at the emotional display that he'd been party to on the phone. She'd called him immediately that Doctor Armitage had hung up and emotions were very close to the surface and impossible to control as she struggled to tell Cho the Doctor's news. Cho smiles reassuringly at her.
"It's fantastic news, he really remembers everything?"
Teresa nods, feeling the tears close to the surface once more.
"All but the last six months."
Cho nods towards the car:
"You're taking the children with you?"
"Yes, he wants to see them. I wondered if you would come with us and watch them, I…I want to spend some time alone with him first?"
"Of course."
Teresa smiles gratefully.
"Thank you, take your car as Patrick can come home with us."
"Let's get going."
On arrival at the hospital, Cho takes Maddy and a protesting Austin to the Cafeteria while Teresa goes up to the ward. Upon entering she sees Doctor Armitage at the nurse's station, he walks over to her smiling broadly. She can see him looking for the children
"The children are in the cafeteria with a friend, I thought it best I see him alone first."
The doctor nods his understanding.
"Are you ready Teresa?"
Butterflies are making a mess of her stomach, a combination of nerves and excitement. A part of her is unable to believe the news and expects to be disappointed when she enters the room. She turns towards the door and takes a deep breath before walking towards it. On the way she reprimands herself and metaphorically stands taller and opens the door purposefully, with no hesitation.
Patrick's standing by the bed, Teresa's drawn immediately to his eyes, and what she sees has her running in to his arms. There's no pain, no hesitancy, no fear, just recognition, excitement, humour, and love. The Patrick she'd thought she'd lost forever has returned to her.
As they cling to each other, Teresa revels in the familiarity of the feel of his body against hers. The 'Other Patrick', is that really the way to think of him, didn't hold her like this. When she feels him pull her even tighter to him and hears him comfort her, she realises that she's crying. To, at last, be inside his protective embrace, disarms her completely and she sobs against his chest.
When her emotions settle and she pulls away, she feels a touch embarrassed, which he reads straight away. He strokes her hair, leaving it when his hand arrives at her chin which he caresses with his thumb. Teresa's knees almost buckle under the tenderness and while a small smile plays on his lips his words belie his concern for her, his voice soft and choked with emotion:
"No need to be embarrassed, the past six months must have been awful for you. You must have felt so alone, I'm so sorry."
After remembering he was a husband, and a father, it was as if a dust sheet had been lifted from his mind and everything was there. Everything he'd been searching for. He'd tried hard to remember the missing time, but there was nothing. He'd tried to imagine what it must have been like, his mind skittering from one question to another. How had he acted? Had he hurt Maddy and Austin by not remembering them? How had it felt to lose Angela and Charlotte all over again? What memories had returned? How had it been for Teresa? The realisation of what she must have been through had driven him off the bed and searching for his clothes.
Teresa strokes his face, her eyes dancing with pure pleasure.
"There's nothing to apologise for."
She chokes out a laugh.
"For once it wasn't your doing that you were shot."
"I hope I haven't been a pain these past six months."
Teresa feels tears overwhelm her once more and they spill over on to her cheeks. She shakes her head, unable to speak. Patrick pulls her close and murmurs against her hair.
"It was wise leaving the kids, what would they think of their blubbering Mother?"
Teresa chokes another laugh against his chest. She pulls away and wipes at her eyes.
"I didn't leave them, they're in the cafeteria with Cho."
Patrick beams.
"Let's go see them."