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He woke up in a room that looked familiar. Like somewhere he'd been before in another life.
And when he searched his memory for where this might be, everything else came flooding back. He was Major Lilywhite. Former college football player, former social worker, former fiancee of Liv Moore, former kidnapper for hire, current … zombie mercenary. Except that he wasn't a zombie, and it was hard to be a zombie mercenary if you weren't dead.
Utter delight filled him as he lay there reliving the best memories: the first football game he'd won in college, the day he'd met Liv, their first kiss, the way she had looked when he proposed. Ravi. Peyton. His life, all back safely in his memory where it belonged.
Which meant that the cure worked. Liv could be cured. They could be together again, get married, have a family—everything they had ever dreamed of. He bounded out of bed, eager to tell her all about it … as soon as he figured out where he was. The bedroom looked like it could have been his when he was a kid. In fact … it had been his, he realized, when he was a teenager, but briefly, and only when he had to stay in it. He was in Walla Walla, at his mother's house. Oof. That was a whole conversation he wasn't sure he was ready for first thing in the morning, especially when topped off with a dollop of "why did you show up at my house with amnesia?", which was a question Major wasn't exactly prepared to answer.
Still, he was going to have to face the questions at some point, and there really was no time like the present.
He made his way cautiously downstairs, the house vaguely familiar but buried so deep in his memory it felt like he had dreamed it at some point. At the bottom of the stairs, he saw a dark-haired woman in the kitchen. As he moved closer to the door, she was joined by a blonde woman, older, but so familiar and loved, even if that love was buried under years of teenage angst and resentment. Yes, it was time he mended this. Long past time.
"Hello?" he said cautiously from the doorway, not wanting to bother them.
The blonde woman turned around, and he was looking into his mom's face for the first time in … years. He held his breath, waiting for her to be angry, to send him out of the house. He deserved that from her.
Instead she smiled, the kind of smile that said she was holding back tears. "Major."
"Mom."
They moved across the room toward each other until they could reach for one another. He couldn't remember when the last time was that he had hugged his mom, and certainly not with the kind of heartfelt joy that filled him now. She was crying, trying to hold it back, even as she rubbed his back the way she used to, and Major could feel himself tearing up as well.
After a long time, she let go, stepping back. Holding him by the arms, she said, "Let me look at you." Her eyes searched his face. "You look tired. Have you been all right? The way you were last night …"
Over his mom's shoulder, he saw Dalia watching him warily.
It was to her more than to his mother that he said, "I'm okay. Really. I'm not on drugs, if that's what you're thinking. I've been … sick. A bad flu," he lied. "I guess some interaction of the meds I was taking for it made me a little delirious." He looked down at his mom. "All I could think of was how long it had been since we spoke, and how I owe you—both of you—an apology. I'm sorry if I worried you showing up here uninvited."
A certain tension in the lines of his mom's face eased at the explanation. Dalia still looked uncertain, but she had always been a tougher sell, and he really hadn't treated her well at all, blaming her for breaking up his parents' marriage.
"Come," his mom said, "come sit down and have some breakfast and tell me everything about you. Are you still working at the shelter?"
"No, not for a little while now. I'm working for a private military company, actually. Good money, good benefits, and I get to travel and see the world."
Dalia flashed him a look that suggested she understood exactly why you saw the world while working for a private military company. Major basically agreed with her.
"But, really, enough about me. Tell me about both of you. You look well."
Reaching a mug down from the cupboard, Dalia held it up in his direction. "Coffee, Major?" They were the first words she had spoken directly to him since he was fifteen, if his memory served—and thankfully, it did.
"Yes, thank you." He reached for the filled cup gratefully, while his mom told him about her work as assistant principal of the local high school, and her gardening club, and the local nonprofit whose board she sat on. Dalia interjected a comment here and there, but mostly she watched his mom's face, so animated and happy, telling him about her life. Major was glad to see that after all this time, Dalia was still in love with his mom. He wished he could have known ten years ago that she would be—he didn't know if it would have made enough of a difference, but it would have made some.
By the time she had gotten through everything she wanted to tell him, he had polished off a plate of scrambled eggs and bacon, made just the way she used to make them when he was little, and he was ready to have the long, long overdue talk that had brought him here.