-4-

Geralt felt warm and weightless, caught between sleep and reality. Through his closed eyelids he could tell that the sun was just about to rise. Inexorably, his conscience slowly began to creep back from the realm of dreams to this plane of existence.

For a moment longer, he savored the comfort of the soft bed beneath him, the warmth that enveloped him, and the gentle breeze that caressed the bare skin on his back like a pair of cool hands. His chest tingled pleasantly, just as it had on those first few warm days when, after a day of hard work, he would take off of his dirty, sweaty shirt and lay down on the grass.

What work, he suddenly wondered. He tasted a memory of grapes on his tongue. The impression was fleeting and passed as quickly as it had come.

He noticed that there was no blanket. Why was there not blanket? He pondered for a moment but then decided that he could no more answer that question then he could teach a nekker how to fly, so he would have to live with this particular mystery.

Slowly but surely, his mind settled back into reality. He kept his eyes closed regardless. The bed was just too comfortable.

Why did he sleep in such a cozy bed? Witchers did not get to do that. Witchers slept on cots or on the path, on grass and dirt, but not in comfortable beds.

The palace, he remembered. He had found Ciri. She was safe and he had spent the night in the palace. He felt an immense sense of relief. She was safe, he could sleep a little longer, enjoy that comfort for a while, without haste, without worry.

But there had been something else, something that kept slipping away from him and out of the grasp of his memory. What was it? It was something important, was it not?

That warm feeling… He suddenly realized that he was hugging someone. Someone. Someone… Kit.

He had her slight form pressed against him, her back to his chest, one knee pushed between her legs. He held her tightly, so tightly that it could not possibly be comfortable. And yet, she slept soundly, entirely undisturbed by the fact that he clung to her like a child to its favorite toy.

He knew that he should have felt strange holding her, the one he did not remember, like that, so very intimately. And he did. But he could not bring himself to release her from his grip. He just had to hold her, his arms refused to let go. Holding her felt so good, so calming. With her everything was fuzzy and warm.

Instead of releasing his grip on her, he held her even tighter. He buried his nose in her hair, in the nape of her neck. She smelled of warmth and comfort. Whatever that meant.

He closed his eyes again but sleep would not come back to him. He became more and more alert. And the more he slipped from sleep's grasp, the less he felt the urge to hold on to Kit. Cautiously, he let go of her.

She was a stranger to him and yet he felt this inexplicable attraction to her. Clearly his body remembered her even if he did not.

Stretching his back and with that shifting his leg a little, he suddenly noticed that Kit was wearing nothing under her nightgown. He was awake enough now to wonder if his leg was supposed to be in its current position with nothing in between them.

He suddenly felt embarrassed, like an intruder. He felt many other things as well, especially sparked by the knowledge he had just gained, which he was about to express in ways that were beyond his control.

Carefully, he pulled his leg away and released her from his grip, immediately regretting his decision to do the right thing when her warmth was gone. He rolled onto his back.

But it seemed that Kit was not having it. She hummed and then turned over on her other side, slipped between Geralt's arm and chest, rested her head on his shoulder and shimmied her leg between his. For good measure she put an arm across his chest. At no time did she appear to be awake.

Geralt noticed that the thin strap of her nightgown had slipped off her shoulder on one side, exposing more of her tender skin. It occurred to him that he would have liked to taste it, to run his tongue, his lips over the soft-looking skin of her almost exposed breast.

He suddenly had this image in mind of her sitting on top of him, her hands resting on his chest. The nightgown had slipped down her slender body and the fabric pooled around her hips. The rest of it had hiked up when she had straddled him. She looked at him, her eyes mesmerizing pools of the lightest blue, while she breathed audibly, moaning softly as she rode him. Geralt felt her energy jump from her to him like lightning when she threw her head back. He held her by the hips, mesmerized by the way the sweat glistened on her skin. Her movements became faster, more erratic. She was close and so was he, the friction making him dizzy. So close, so soon their energy would be released.

He woke up. Kit was still sleeping on his chest.

It was just a dream, he realized. The tension slipped from his body. From most of it away. Parts of him were not yet ready to give up on the idea of an imminent orgasm.

Much later Kit awoke. She stretched just like a cat, noticed that Geralt was awake and smiled at him. Then she seemed to remember and the smile vanished from her face. Unsure what to say, they got dressed in awkward silence.

They said their goodbyes to Ciri and promised to notify her if they could not figure out what had happened to Geralt.

Ciri smiled as if there was nothing to worry about.

"You're in good hands," she told Geralt as she hugged him goodbye.

He wanted to trust her, but in the light of day the magic of the previous night had faded and he started to question everything all over again.

The town had been awake much longer than Geralt and Kit, and the marketplace was crowded and even louder than usual. People shouted over each other and pushed each other out of the way.

"Don't act like you don't know me! At night, I'm good enough for you to crawl into my sheets. And now you pretend that you don't know me? Have you no shame?"

Geralt saw the agitated woman out of the corner of his eye.

"But I don't know you, I've never seen you before! What do you even want from me?" a man answered. He looked nervous and seemed to shrink under the stern gaze of the woman he was with – his wife, Geralt supposed, who might have just found out about her husband's infidelity.

A few people around them clapped, others shouted and some ignored the commotion altogether.

"And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what happens when wine is your only refuge," Kit added casually.

Geralt huffed.

"If only it were that easy," he muttered to himself.

"Nothing's ever easy with you. Or me. But I promise you it's worth it."

He looked at her as she smiled at him, so full of hope.

"We should ask the others if you told anyone where you went the day before you lost your memory," Kit suggested. "Maybe that'll give us somewhere to start."

We. Us. She used these words so matter-of-factly that it caught Geralt by surprise. He had only imagined himself searching for clues. After all, that was what his life had always been like.

"Didn't I tell you?" he wondered.

"You might have. And I might have been too consumed with work to remember. Most of the time I prefer not to know what you do so I don't have to stress myself to death imagining everything that could go wrong."

"You'd prefer that I not work as a witcher then?"

"Absolutely."

"Have you ever asked me to quit?"

Kit looked at him and shook her head.

"You can be knee-deep in grapes, literally, and talk about wine all day, but you will never stop being a witcher. And as I may have said before, I like you just the way you are – even if I don't like what you do. But more than anything, I need you to be happy. And you're only happy when you get to do all those things and not just one." She paused. "But I hate it. I really, truly hate it."

Geralt said nothing. He wondered whether or not it was true. Had she never tried to persuade him to give up his way of life? He tried to imagine his life without doing the one thing that he had literally been created for, but he could not, it was impossible. How did he fit together with someone who was so obviously not cut out for this kind of life? Still, the fact that she worried about him warmed his heart. People did never care about him, their only concern was whatever danger was threatening them. He had saved countless lives but that did not mean any person had ever shed a tear for him.

When they returned to Corvo Bianco, they found the estate as busy as ever. A worker called out to Geralt and wanted to know if the young vines should be watered or if he preferred to wait a little longer.

Geralt turned to Kit.

"Why is he asking me that?" he wondered quietly, trying his best not to make it immediately obvious to everybody that he did not remember a thing.

Kit turned toward him and pretended to straighten out the collar of his shirt as she whispered:

"Because you're the boss. The young vines usually need a lot of water in this weather. You told me that it takes about three years for their roots to grow deep enough to survive without any extra water. However, I ran into old Guss earlier this week. He said his left elbow claims that the season of storms is due within a few weeks. Maybe it can wait that long?"

He found it rather distracting to feel her so close. Whenever her fingertips brushed over his skin he wanted to reach for her hands, pull her closer, ask her to touch him everywhere.

"Season of storms?" he managed to ask.

Kit shrugged.

"Those odd few weeks sometime between March and May where the weather will suddenly get colder again before summer really hits. We get pretty heavy storms and a lot of rain before the weather finally remembers that Touissaint is notoriously sunny and dry."

"And who's Guss and why is his opinion of any relevance?" He did not care. He just wanted her to keep touching him.

"Old Guss is a vagabond who's always around somewhere. He injured his elbow when he was just a kid, and now whenever it hurts, he knows it's going to rain soon. I'd say his elbow knows what's up about 95% of the time. He's definitely more reliable than any weather app I've ever used…"

"My knee can do something similar," Geralt said, as always ignoring the parts she said that made no sense to him.

"Not anymore, sorry," Kit apologized once again and let go of him.

She apologized to him an awful lot for things that Geralt found in no way apology-worthy. The fact that his knee could not predict the weather anymore, because it was fully healed now, seemed to be a blessing more than anything else.

"Did I tell you much about growing wine?"

"It can't be avoided," she mused.

"Which is funny because I know nothing about wine except how to drink it."

"You do know it – you just don't remember it right now."

You just don't remember right now – he would hear that from her again and again in the following week. Kit had given up on her dresses for the time being and instead accompanied the witcher, trying to teach him everything she knew about his trade. Tools had to be repaired, bottles and wine barrels had to be ordered, and wine had to be shipped. And that was just a fraction of the regular tasks. At least twice a day one of the men working for Geralt came to him and asked him a question that he had no way of answering. He would have rather crossed paths with a Sphinx and tried to answer her questions than to run into one of his own men. At least with the Sphinx he had a decent chance to solve her riddles. But how was he supposed to know whether any plants needed fertilizer or not, or how long it would take for a certain vintage to be ready for shipment? Neither his general knowledge nor his education was of any help. At the University of Oxenfurt people had only cared about drinking wine, no one had ever held a lecture about the logistics behind it.

Geralt had no choice but to religiously parrot what Kit whispered in his ear, but this could not go on forever.

One morning, Geralt was asked to examine the state of some vines on a plot of land he had newly acquired just a few months back.

He stared at the plants in front of him and concluded that he was still much better at drinking wine than making it. It frustrated him greatly, especially since he quickly realized that a lot of people depended on him. For someone who had only ever been responsible for himself – and at times Ciri – this experience was unwelcome. He was used to ridding villagers of one plague or another, a short-term obligation, never a long-term responsibility. And if things went sideways, he would simply leave and it would be of little consequence.

But here? The livelihood of his workers depended on him. There were business partners to consider, even a reputation to maintain.

Miraculously, Kit always seemed to know exactly when Geralt was about to be overwhelmed, even when, to the best of his knowledge, he had given no indication. At some point, she would claim to feel unwell or to need his help, and ask Geralt to accompany her. It was her preferred method of getting him out of any unpleasant situation while managing to give him a quick rundown of all the facts she knew about whatever topic. When he finally returned, he would always be able to give an answer to whichever question he had been asked. He assumed that his answers so far had been reasonable as no one suspected that anything was amiss.

During one of Kit's rescue missions she decided to give him a break and take him somewhere else entirely: They rode to a hill near lac Célavy and enjoyed a beautiful picknick. A light breeze carried the scent of spring flowers, while small white clouds drifted across the sky above their heads. Geralt appreciated the calm and the view. Kit had leaned her head on his shoulder and pointed out different places in the distance and what had happened here or what they had done there.

"I think it was two or three years ago, when a nymph took up short-term residency at Célavy."

"A naiad in this area?" he wondered.

"She was probably just passing through and gone within a few weeks. It was for the better."

"Why so?"

"I'm certain she had a little crush on me and you didn't take it too well." He felt her chuckle. "She was always trying to get me to undress and go swimming with her. But whenever you showed up, looking a little miffed, she would swim away."

"Mh. Sounds like I was just looking out for you."

"Were you now?"

Geralt remained silent, asking himself that very same question. But for a brief moment he could imagine it, this hint of jealousy at having to share her. The impression was fleeting and gone as quickly as it had come.

He listened to her stories, enjoying the weight and the warmth of her against him. He considered putting an arm around her, still struggling with his attraction to her, but not wanting to raise any false hopes. After all, he had no idea if he really would be able to stay. If his memories did not return and he decided that this life was not for him, he intended to disappear quietly without leaving more of a mess than necessary. And broken hearts were very messy.

But the longer they sat there, the stronger the invisible thread began to tug on his chest, the more he felt himself being drawn to her. Consequences suddenly seemed irrelevant.

For the past week, she had guided him, grown closer to him. She had unerringly worked on tearing down the walls around him. But she had never done more than try to hold his hand or cuddle up against him. They had not even kissed, even though Geralt found it hard to resist and it became harder every day to pretend that he was unbothered by her being so close.

His resolve threatened to melt away, every day more so. Was it really necessary to hold back when something felt so good and right?

He turned his head toward her and lifted his hand slowly, trailing it along her arm, enjoying the tickle of energy beneath his fingertips, until he reached her face. He brushed lightly over her cheek, wondering again where the sudden urge to kiss her had come from, before placing a hand on her cheek and lowering his face to hers until the tip of his nose touched hers. She lifted her head towards him, her heart beating faster. She looked surprised at first but then closed her eyes. He could already feel her warmth, her breath on his lips.

"Oi!"

The sound broke Geralt out of his trance. Kit, apparently equally surprised, searched for Geralt's eyes while her own betrayed a hint of annoyance.

"The light is lovely! We should make good use of it right away!" the stranger declared, somewhat out of breath, as he approached the two of them with large steps.

Kit looked as confused as Geralt felt.

"Who is this?"

But the question answered itself when the man, who was hectically waving his lanky arms around, produced a sketchbook and an assortment of pencils.

"Please get back in position – this is going to be wonderful." He had not even looked them in the eye but had already started sketching.

"Uh, excuse me," Kit piped up. "This isn't a good time."

"Oh no, don't you see? This is the best time of the day. And now please get back in position."

"I don't appreciate taking orders," Geralt grumbled.

The artist finally looked up from his sketchbook and directly at the witcher.

"We must all bow to her, for art is the only raison d'être," he shouted. "And now hold still and put your hand back where it was."

Geralt was about to tell the man what he thought of the arts, and it would not be flattering, when he felt a vibration on his chest. It was Kit, trembling with suppressed laughter.

"Just play along, I have a feeling the result will be worth it."

"How do you know?" he wondered as he put his hand back on her cheek.

"If I'm not mistaken, you've met this man before and the resulting portrait was… interesting. Not necessarily an accurate representation of reality, but still."

"Put your hands back on his chest, my lady!"

Kit did as she was told while she narrated a story in hushed tones that Geralt himself had once told her: How an artist had seen him and wanted to paint his portrait but then a griffin had attacked them and was later incorporated into the painting as a decorative element.

"Maybe it's still in his gallery, then I can show it to you on the way back."

"Do I even want to see it?" he asked, trapped between doubt and intrigue.

"Well, it should give you a good idea of what this one will look like."

They spend over an hour embracing each other, sometimes talking in hushed voices, sometimes in silence. It should have been uncomfortable or awkward. But it was the opposite: While they were so close to each other, Geralt felt at ease. He enjoyed the forced closeness, the shared laughter.

"Do you think he will take much longer? I'm hungry and I know for sure that there is still a piece of baguette begging to be eaten."

Geralt looked for the painter out of the corner of his eye only to find that he was gone. Confused he looked around. How had he not noticed?

"Strange," Kit added and then unceremoniously grabbed the baguette she had wanted to eat for so long.

Geralt laughed at her rumbling stomach.

On the way back, they stopped at the gallery, as Kit had suggested, to look at the first portrait the artist had ever done of Geralt.

"Pretty sure that didn't happen," he said when he saw himself, barely covered, sitting on the griffin's corpse. Amnesia or not, he would have never undressed to pose with the corpse of a monster.

"Certainly not, no. Which makes it all the more exciting to see what he will make of us. From what you've told me, this one here," she nodded at the painting, "has made you very popular with the female part of Beauclair's population."

"I have my doubts."

"When I first came here and you brought me to the palace for the wine festival, I even had to protect you from all the women who wanted to throw themselves at you. They practically undressed you with their eyes."

"You? Protected me? How?" The idea that she should be able to protect him from anything was quite comical.

A sly smile spread across her lips.

"I made sure they knew you were mine. You should know, I can be quite possessive."

Geralt shrugged.

"As long as you're not possessed."

Kit laughed.

"But what exactly did you do?" he asked curiously.

"There is a special law where I come from. It's ancient, as old as time but I think it is understood in all the worlds."

Geralt raised his eyebrows, not sure what she was talking about.

"And what is this law called?"

"It doesn't have a name. All it says is: If you lick it, it's yours." Kit grinned. "It's very helpful if you want to keep others from eating your food."

Geralt chuckled.

"So, you licked me and I was yours?" He raised an eyebrow and tried hard not to imagine what this must have looked like.

"Well, no, not exactly. We kissed which is the equivalent of licking people - in polite society."

"And in less polite society you'd have… licked me? Just making sure I understand the law correctly."

"Technically, there was a whole lot of licking. Much later though. With no company present. Also technically not licking. Different… motions. You know. But same thing." Kit cleared her throat, looking a little embarrassed. Then she started walking, glancing over her shoulder. There was a spark in her eyes.

It took him a moment to understand. He laughed and followed her. He liked that feisty side of her. Somehow, he could reconcile that version of her much better with him and his life than the other Kit, the careful one who chaperoned him through his working days.

When Geralt went to bed he felt slightly better about everything. So far, Kit had done a fantastic job of steering him through the day, and after a week of that, it felt a smidge less frustrating. But every night after dinner she excused herself to continue working on her dresses.

"I have deadlines to meet," she would say. Not once did she return before morning, always falling asleep in her atelier, where she tried to get as much work done as possible by the light of a few candles. Geralt was sorry to have caused her so much extra work. He tried to make the most of it by familiarizing himself with all the books and papers about wine that he had stashed in his bedroom, so that he could at least gain some knowledge. He still did not believe that this life could be his, but he figured he could only evaluate the situation if he gave it at least some effort. Though that was sometimes made difficult when his thoughts started to drift because of all the innuendos Kit had made. He found himself smiling, wondering what had really happened back then – and what would happen if he did not try to keep away from her.

Whenever he decided to lie down, he wished she would spend the night with him. He had become quite enamored with her despite all his attempts to avoid creating any attachment. Occasionally he sensed that there was something like a memory, but in the end, he was left with nothing but a vague feeling that he could not grasp. He began to wonder if he would ever remember again. And if he did not, would it not be better if he did not get used to her? When he eventually left, it would hurt less. Whether that was true for her or for him as well, he did not know.

Every night without fail, when he lay in bed alone, darker thoughts resurfaced. Not knowing what to do and how to act frustrated him greatly, especially since everyone around him seemed to know exactly what they were supposed to do – and what he was supposed to do. Geralt found himself in unknown territory and did not like it at all. He would have preferred to talk to someone about it, but he had a feeling that this would put a target on his back. Besides, the only person he could have talked to was Eskel – and he was gone.

Geralt remembered how Triss had abused the situation the last time he was left without his memory. She had seemed so trustworthy back then, so loving and caring – just like Kit. He could not help but think that she might do the exact same thing to him. She seemed trustworthy, but how would he ever know that she was? He much preferred that there were no ulterior motives involved, because he genuinely liked her and felt rather guilty for having suspicions in the first place, since she was so devoted to making him feel better.

But nobody was exempt from his suspicions.

It was difficult to shake off his doubts. Back then, when he had been with Triss, none of his friends had ever mentioned Yen. What if this was the same? He told himself how unlikely that was, but he had been burned once and would not make the same mistake again. Being too trusting had gotten him into hot water before and it was about time he finally started to learn from his mistakes.

These thoughts kept him awake at night, and every morning he was in a foul mood. It took a lot of patience and persuasion on Kit's part to get him to even try to see her as just the person she presented herself to be, and not the devious creature he had made her out to be. And whenever he had reached that point, he felt bad for suspecting her at all. He wanted to return her gestures of comfort, hold her hand, hug her – but then he would feel bad for giving her hope. So he stayed distant, leaving it to her to pry her way into his heart. She would never stop before she had finally coaxed a smile from him. Which was then promptly followed by another spiral of guilt on Geralt's side.

The torn witcher had barely finished his breakfast with an exhausted looking Kit sitting opposite of him, when one of his men came to ask about the latest developments in a recent a land dispute. Apparently, it was not certain if the land in question belonged to Geralt or if it still belonged to Château Nairac. The Nairacs were forced to sell off more and more parts of their estate in recent years due to mismanagement and rising debt. Unfortunately, even the sales process was not safe from said mismanagement and things usually became quite chaotic. Plots of land had been sold twice by mistake, while others were supposed to be transferred to a new owner, but somehow had been left out of the paperwork. In any case, a bridge had fallen into disrepair, and the owner of the land in question was responsible for fixing it.

"I believe you ordered a transcript of the survey data and other documents from the chamberlain's notary. Let's have a look at your office, it's probably in there somewhere," Kit suggested.

Geralt's office was right upstairs. The room had been a guestroom before. After that it had served as Kit's workspace. But ever since she had taken over her own atelier, Geralt had moved all of his paperwork from the bedroom to the then empty room upstairs.

When they entered, Geralt still holing a pickled cucumber in his hand, they were greeted by stacks of paper, books, ledgers and a collection of empty ink bottles. Here and there a grindstone served as a paperweight.

"We've got some work to do," Kit said as she picked up a pile of paper. "I knew you didn't like paperwork, but I had no idea that you disliked it this much."

Geralt did not disagree. He remembered Kit's atelier, which had been in a similar state of disorder, but chose not to point that out.

"Don't you ever come in here?" he wondered.

She shook her head.

"Nah, this is your world. I have my own job to keep me busy. But maybe you should consider hiring someone to do that for you."

Geralt wanted to protest – what an odd idea. This was not his mess and how should he pay for someone to work for him? And then he realized that it was indeed his mess and that this mess likely yielded him enough funds to pay others to work for him – just like all those workers outside in the fields.

Together they rifled through the documents until they found what they needed.

"Not my problem then," Geralt concluded as he looked at a map and traced the line that separated his property from the patch of land where the broken bridge was located and that still belonged to the Nairacs.

"I love it when something turns out to be someone else's problem." Kit grinned happily.

Geralt rubbed his forehead, overwhelmed by the towering stacks of paper. Without her help, he would have been lost. How was it that he could face giant beasts with teeth sharper than swords without even thinking, and yet, at the sight of all of this, a sense of dread began to overcome him?

"Is this what I do all day?" Geralt asked very unenthusiastically.

"No, not all day. Just sometimes. And if you had your memories then you would have probably known immediately where to look. I think you have a system. Not one that I can claim to understand but I'm sure there's some rhyme and reason to how you arrange your things."

"Do you always put so much trust in me?"

Kit cocked her head as she looked at the pouting witcher who was very obviously not convinced.

"Come on, I think we deserve a change of scenery and a break."

A short ride later, they found themselves in the middle of a forest, near a shallow lake that was fed by a small stream. The surrounding trees were old and crooked, and seemed to swallow all other sounds except the pleasant splashing and gurgling of the river.

Kit sat down on the ground, which was covered with thick, lush moss.

"Come on, lie down," she urged him. Geralt, always curious, complied. She indicated for him to place his head in her lap. Then she promptly removed his hair tie and combed through the white strands with her fingers. Any tension in him simply evaporated and within seconds he felt like a piece of butter in the sun, slowly softening. She carefully separated his hair and brushed through it, pressing the tips of her fingers into his scalp and running them all over his head. She massaged his neck with her thumbs, gently running them over the skin behind his ears.

He opened his eyes and looked at her. She smiled and said: "Just relax."

He slowly let himself be carried away by this sea of soft, warm touches. His body became weightless and the moss beneath him started to feel like clouds. He had no idea how much time they had spent like this, but suddenly he felt that thread again. It pulled and pulled, always pulling him towards her. He had that urge to kiss her again. When he looked at Kit, her eyes were closed and she only opened them when Geralt carefully tugged on her braid and then wrapped it loosely around his hand.

"Why me? Why did they send you to me?" he asked.

She shrugged. "They must have some way to tell that we'd be a good match."

"In your opinion," he demanded.

"Maybe because you have a house in a nice and sunny neighborhood? Men with prime real estate are always a good catch," she jested.

"So you want me for my wealth?" Geralt smiled.

"And for your body, of course. You're really useful when it comes to carrying heavy things. You can reach all those high cupboards I'm too small for. The sex with you is… also pretty good," she said with feigned ease and avoided his look.

"Just pretty good?" he pouted but then grinned. He thought of his recent dream and felt the heat pooling in his stomach. If his dream was an indication of reality, it was certainly not just 'pretty good'.

"Of course, that's the thing you choose to focus on. Men."

"It's hard not to wonder…" when you touch me like that, when you feel so good, he finished the sentence in his mind. He remembered their kiss. No, there was no way that 'pretty good' was in any way accurate.

"Sometimes, when you kiss me, I think I forget to breathe."

He was surprised that she just confessed these things so easily, as if it was already obvious.

"Be careful, I'm starting to develop high expectations," he said. All the doubts he had harbored had been pushed to the back of his mind. Everything else was suddenly occupied by curiosity, need and desire.

Geralt, her braid still wrapped around his hand, propped himself up. Kit looked surprised at first, but then she smiled as he gently pulled at her braid to bring her closer to him. He longed to kiss her and find her breathless afterwards, to see if he could make her forget to breathe.

He was mildly surprised when she moved quickly around him and straddled him in one fluid motion.

Heat spread through his body as he felt her weight on him. He felt his need grow, and from the way she shifted her hips, he figured that she did too.

"If I should disappoint your expectations, I must insist on a repeat. Or several."

"In that case I'd like to let it be known that I'm already disappointed."

"That's fine. I have a scientific background, and any scientist worth their salt knows that every experiment must be repeated several times, under the same as well as under different conditions. Otherwise the data is without context and of little use."

Kit lowered her lips to his throat and planted a few kisses on his heated skin. He exhaled through clenched teeth as her energy shot through his body like lightning.

"What… what conditions do you think should be adjusted?" he asked, his voice a hoarse murmur.

She continued to carefully nibble on his skin, setting him on fire as she did so.

"The moss is fine. But a mattress would be nice."

"What else?" he whispered as her tongue swirled over the abused patch of skin.

"Mm," she hummed against his throat. The sound seemed to reverberate throughout his entire body.

"Location. Lonely forest, empty stables. The table in my atelier is pretty sturdy for a reason."

"Fuck," he ground out at the thought of taking her in all those places.

"Don't forget the positioning. Top, bottom…"

That was too much. He let go of her hair, grabbed her hips with both of his hands and turned her around. When Kit knotted her legs around his hips, Geralt put his weight on his forearms, right next to her head. He tilted his hips to let her know just how hard he was. Even through all the layers of their clothes it made her moan. The sound went straight to his core and made Geralt shiver pleasantly.

Kit's cheeks were flushed and her eyes shone in the brightest blue as she lay beneath him, her lips parted invitingly, her fingers tracing his heated skin trough the collar of his shirt. He had to know how she felt, on him, around him…

A low rumble shook the ground between them.

Kit jumped, her eyes darting around.

"Shit. We need to leave," she said. "Come, quickly." Carefully she forced him to get down from her.

Geralt took a moment longer to wake from his trance, still distracted by the sweet pulsation between his legs.

"A shaelmaar?" he guessed as he got up, still dazed.

"I think so. Not sure if it is beneath us or somewhere on the surface, but I'd like to never find out."

"Beneath us," Geralt said after a moment of listening closely. "But we should leave anyway."

Not because of the monster. He did not fear it, even though facing it with his pants down was not his preferred way of dealing with things. But if they had stayed any longer, he was certain he would have broken his vow not to touch her and complicate things. And he really wanted to complicate things. A lot, preferably repeatedly.

Now that his head was clear, he was glad to leave the forest behind. It was just too cozy and too inviting an environment to stick to his resolutions.

As they trotted away on their horses, Kit said:

"When I came here, I had nothing but an abundance of panic and fear. I had nothing to offer you, but you took me in like it wasn't even a question. You patiently stayed with me through all my breakdowns. I think that's the only reason I didn't go insane. And for you to suffer through all of that with me, I'm sure there was something that you saw in me." He was surprised that she just confessed these things so easily, like she had nothing to hide.

"What about me?" he asked. "What reason did I have to want you to stay?"

At that Kit looked at him, her face full of hurt.

"Probably none, if you cannot think of any reason by now." She spurred her horse on and left him to himself.

Geralt realized too late that he had phrased his question badly. Of course he could think of reasons why he would have liked her. What he really wanted to know was what it had been back then, when he had first found her, that had convinced him to take her with him.

He remembered what she had said about her not deserving him if she could not make him remember. He felt terrible and quickly concluded that he needed to explain himself and apologize to her. Regardless of whether this life was for him, hurting her was just cruel.

When Geralt arrived at Corvo Bianco, he caught his reflection in the brass mirror that hung in the dining room. He ran his hand through his beard – an unusual sight for him, who had always preferred a clean shave. Somehow, he thought, he did not see himself in that reflection.

After lunch, he decided he would seek out a local barber and then follow some tracks he had stumbled upon near the border of his property. He needed to get out of this mess and finally do something he was more familiar with and where he felt in control of the situation.

Kit was nowhere to be found and had not joined him for lunch.

He put on his amour. Its weight was welcome, familiar, a barrier between him and all the unknown that surrounded him. He knew it would not protect him from it, but the familiar feeling still managed to put him at ease.

He rummaged around for a pair of gloves and grabbed his swords.

Finally, when he was ready to leave, one hand already on the doorknob, he heard the muffled voices of Kit and Barnabas-Basil. They were sitting on the porch outside. Geralt hesitated.

"What if he never comes back to me?" Kit asked, sounding desperate and exhausted. "I need him back. I miss him so much."

"It's only been a week, be more patient with him," the majordomo tried to comfort her.

"I'm not even sure he's in there anymore. I feel like I'm looking at a stranger."

Something about hearing her talk as if he had disappointed her rubbed Geralt the wrong way.

Was he to blame that she was in love with some idea of him, some other version? Was it even love? Triss had claimed to love him, but it had turned out it had never been love – it had been an obsession, not even with him, but with the idea of his and Yen's relationship. And now it felt like it was happening all over again. But this time he was not going to simply endure it or entertain someone else's fantasies. He had already spent too much of his life dealing with things that were predestined and out of his hands. Ciri, the prophecies surrounding her, the age-old question whether his choices mattered. And now he was once again confronted with other people's expectations of him. He was sick of having everything decided for him, he would not let anyone tell him who or how he had to be.

Determined, he opened the door and stepped out.

"Mind not talking about me as if I wasn't here?" he snapped. It came out much harsher than he had intended but he felt treated unfairly by having to live up to their ideal of him.

"But the person we're talking about isn't here anymore," Kit replied, tears streaming down her face. Without so much as looking at him, she walked away.

"It's very hard for her," the majordomo tried to explain but Geralt had already started to walk away.

As if it isn't on me as well, he thought bitterly.

The incident had left him in a terrible mood, caught somewhere between frustration and guilt, but he decided to seek out a barber anyway. If there was one thing he needed now, it was distraction.

He vaguely remembered that there had been a barber somewhere around the tournament grounds in the past, an old fellow with curly gray hair. The man he ended up finding looked young, hardly a man at all. Of course, he realized, it was foolish to assume he would find the same barber who had been there decades ago when he was still searching for Ciri. He was likely long dead.

This younger one was small and slender, but if the state of his own hair was any indication, he was to be trusted.

"Afternoon, Geralt," he greeted the witcher. "Didn't expect you so soon."

Geralt was somehow surprised and at the same time not surprised to learn that he was a regular customer.

He took another look in the mirror when the barber asked him if he wanted his usual.

Annoyed by his own face, Geralt gave instructions.

"Are you sure? Your wife seems to really like…"

"Just do it," Geralt grunted with a determined wave of his hand, eager to finally regain some control over his life – even if it was something as trivial as a haircut.

"There you go," the barber brushed the last bits of hair from Geralt's shoulders.

The witcher glanced at his reflection.

"What do I owe you?"

"Nothing, as per usual. I'm telling you again, you saved my life, you don't pay, ever."

Geralt raised his eyebrows in surprise and wondered how many people's lives he had saved around here and if he had just accidentally revealed his secret.

"Don't you think this debt would be paid sometime?" he asked, hoping to cover up his lapse and find out what exactly he had done for this man. By now, he was desperate for every little scrap of information he could find about himself.

The barber shook his head.

"It's thanks to your soup kitchen that I am still alive. It kept me from starving to death for years. And for that I will forever be grateful to you and your wife. There are many wealthy people around here, but you two are the only ones who are always willing to help."

Geralt listened as the barber recounted tales of cold winters when he was just a young boy and had found himself unable to steal food from the surrounding fields, and how Geralt's and Kit's generous donations had helped him and many others.

The witcher wondered how much his life must have had changed for such an idea to even occur to him. It did not sound quite right to him that he would care about feeding the poor. Usually, he was the one who starved when there was no work to be found.

When Geralt eventually left, he felt lighter. The beard was gone, making his face look even younger than he had remembered it. The sides of his head were shaved to a few millimeters, leaving only the hair in his ponytail long. He could not part with that one – it reminded him of Vesemir. Ciri had told him about his death, but he had not yet fully grasped it. And who knew, it might not be true anyway.

Geralt was annoyed by his own suspicions, but his determination not to repeat past mistakes had long since overshadowed everything else.

He returned to the familiar path and examined the tracks he had discovered earlier. He soon realized that the tracks were old, but had been preserved by the dry weather. They were lost after whatever creature had crossed a shallow riverbed. Sullenly, Geralt continued on. And on. He needed something to fight against that was not his own thoughts and doubts. He was desperate for something familiar, for something easy.

The further he strayed from Corvo Bianco, the better he felt. He let Roach gallop on the sparsely used roads, trying to shake off whatever had stolen his peace of mind.

Only when the sun began to set did he realize how late it had become. The vegetation around him had grown thicker and greener – a likely sign that he was leaving Toussaint behind. And this realization made him happy. Perhaps he should leave, he thought. He wanted to find Yen, ask her what had happened between them. Sure, Ciri had told him, but the not knowing and how people had lied to him the last time left a bitter taste in his mouth. He had to be sure – no lies, no omission of information this time. He wished Eskel would finally return, but a trip from here to Novigrad and back took at least two weeks. With a pregnant woman he was likely to be even slower. His inner restlessness ate at him. He needed to act now.

He felt a pang in his heart at the thought of Kit. How she would probably be worried, waiting for him. She had been nothing but sweet and caring, trying to give him all the space he could possibly need. It was not her fault that it had not been enough.

But then again, from what she had said earlier, this version of him was not good enough anyway. Maybe she would be glad to be rid of him. Or maybe he was being unfair to her. It occurred to him that he had hardly ever considered how she might feel about losing her husband, about this stranger sitting next to her instead of the person who she was used to.

Geralt decided that it was too late now anyway. He would send her a short note from the next inn, letting her know that he was alright and would return soon. As he continued on, now with a small guilty conscience in the back of his mind, he tried to reassure himself that he had no obligations to her or anyone else. He had always been a loner for a reason.

Dear reader,

it has been a week and Geralt still doesn't remember a thing. And this scares me more than I can put into words. I keep thinking of what Eskel said, that Geralt is the type to randomly ride into the sunset to get away from things.

Every morning he looks at me like I'm a stranger and he doesn't know what I want from him. Maybe he's annoyed by me? I'm scared that I'll drive him away by being too affectionate but I don't know what else to do. It hurts that there is no recognition when he looks at me and I think my courage might run out eventually. I want to tell him that I love him and miss him. But I don't dare to. We used to joke around and now I hardly dare to jest because I'm afraid he'll take it the wrong way. Sometimes I feel like he's outright hostile, except he doesn't say anything. It's all in the way he looks at me. Like he'd rather not. How he avoids touching me when I try to be close to him – unless I basically directly tell him I want to sleep with him. That seems to catch his interest for a moment but due to circumstances so far has led nowhere.

I'm having small panic attacks all throughout the night because I'm afraid that by the next morning he will simply be gone.

I've tried my best to be there for him, help him out, show my affection without being pushy. But I think it's all for nothing. Today he asked me what reason he had to like me. Apparently nothing I have done so far has convinced him that I would be someone he'd be interested in being with. I don't think I've ever been hurt so deeply by anyone. Especially him of all people.

What happened to my husband? Where is he? I don't even recognize him anymore.

I'm tired. I work through the nights so I can help Geralt during the day but I've reached my breaking point. Maybe I need to accept that our love wasn't what I thought it was.

I wish Ana was here. I need my friend, I need her – or anyone – to tell me that there is still hope, that this will blow over and everything will return to what it was before.