V. Thunder without Rain

Not the end, but perhaps the beginning of the end. For there is no silence in the mountains, and thunder without rain.

With thanks to Taylor Serenil, who read this through and made this rather more intelligible thereby! Thank you! And thanks as ever to those who wrote asking when the next part would be along. Part Six will be an end to it. Five down, one to go.

Raven

December 12: Steve

"Steve?"

Steve? Who was Steve? He stared at the pale ceiling and tried to speak, who are you, where am I? His breath came quicker and his eyes widened. Why can't I move?

"Steve, honey?"

He tried to reply, but his voice wouldn't work, no words, just garbled gibberish coming out instead. He wanted to say, help me, please, help me, but the words mangled beyond comprehension, and he stopped, appalled to realize that he was the one making those awful, animal noises. His eyes wouldn't track. He could only see straight up at a white tiled ceiling.

And he couldn't remember. Who was he? Was he Steve? He struggled to remember... that didn't feel right... his name was -- his thoughts were derailed as the woman spoke again.

"Mr. Harper? Steve? Steve, if you can hear me, can you try to respond. Can you do that? Can you blink for me? Or squeeze my hand?"

His brain hurt. She was giving him too many choices. A slender hand on his squeezed gently, and he tried to squeeze back. The hand was strong on his for all that it felt so small. It reminded him of something, someone, but before he could remember more than long curly hair and a heart shaped face pain stabbed through his skull, and he moaned wordlessly, his eyes closing.

"I know it hurts, Steve, but it's important. Can you squeeze my hand?"

He struggled to understand -- he had squeezed her hand surely? He clenched his fist, thought about clenching his fist, and nothing happened beyond a slight tightening of his wrist muscles, and a tired ache in his hand. He let his hand go slack in hers. He could at least hide in the pretense of sleep. He wasn't sure why he wanted to hide, but he trusted his instincts.

"Now, don't do that, honey." She sounded amused, and he frowned a little.

"That's better. You're getting better, Steve, it's just taking a while. Now, come on, I know you're awake. And that frown tells me you understand me. You're making real progress. Of course, you're using it to lie to me, but that's spooks for ya. Now, I've got this last bit of your exercises to do with you, and then you can go back to resting, but not just yet. Come on, sweetheart."

He opened his eyes again and she was sitting in his line of sight, gently lifting, bending and stretching his right arm.

"That's better. Those pretty eyes were shut such a long time."

He blinked slowly, and she stopped dead. "Steve?" She moved up close, enough that he could smell coffee on her breath, see the flaw-lines almost concealed by make-up. "Steve, are you trying to communicate? Steve?"

He blinked again.

"Oh my God! That's so great!"

He frowned faintly at her excitement, and she patted his cheek familiarly.

"I'm sorry, sweetie, but you've been asleep for so long, we didn't think --" She visibly tried to calm herself. "Okay, okay. Doctor. I should call the doctor."

He closed his eyes in negation, and the sound of her moving away ceased.

"Are you sleeping, Steve?" There was a pause, and she sighed. "The machine's telling me you're awake, honey. There's no point pretending."

A hand grasped his again, and he slowly opened his eyes to look at her.

"Great, that's wonderful. I know it doesn't feel like much, but you couldn't do this much last week. Now, can you blink once for yes, and twice for no? Can you do that for me?"

He rolled his eyes and blinked twice.

"You can't?" She sounded horribly disappointed and then she slapped his arm gently. "You're teasing me. That's great!"

Her enthusiasm was infectious and he tried to smile at her. It wasn't entirely successful, but she gasped and patted his hand tightly.

"You have the sweetest smile." She dropped an impulsive kiss on his forehead. "I'm going to call the doctor now." Her hand disappeared out of his line of view, and he turned his head away, overwhelmingly tired, and slept.

Christmas.

Buck jolted from his reverie with a grunt.

"You want some more or not?" Chris asked again, and Buck looked back to his empty tumbler then up at his friend. He shook his head. "Better not," he said softly.

He put the glass down and stood, walking to the big windows. It was gray outside, the twilight fading into night. Still light enough to see the pristine snow lying on the ground.

"When are they getting here?" he asked casually.

In the glass he could see Chris pause as he went around the room, picking up the detritus of a day in front of the tv watching ball games and eating snacks.

"Early tomorrow. Vin has a date tonight, so he might be late. Ezra's planning on dodging Maude. Reckon he thought he'd have had enough of her after a whole day together today, so I reckon he'll either be up early, or conscience will kick in and he'll call on her first thing to get it out of the way. If he comes after that is anyone's guess. Nathan said he'd try to come tomorrow morning if he could. He and Raine are over at her mother's today."

Buck nodded, leaning one arm on the window, palm flat to the cold glass. "Pinning that lot down is like herding cats," he mumbled, seemingly fascinated by the condensation on the window as his warm breath hit it. "Josiah?"

"Said he'd be up when he could. You know him."

"Could mean anything." Buck nodded, and absently started drawing rabbit faces in the mist. He signed his name with a flourish and got as far as half turning his head before his shoulders slumped a little, and he wiped a hand across them without a word.

"You got plans?"

"For this evening?" Buck asked. His reflection looked surprised, and he supposed he was, a little. Where else was he going to go for Christmas? That had been true for longer than Chris had lived here. It wasn't about to change just yet. "You know I don't."

"Yeah," Chris said resignedly. "I know. You thought maybe you should?"

Buck did turn at that and found Chris watching him, his whole stance one of disinterest. "No, I ain't."

"It's not going to change anything. You don't need to be a monk just because--"

"Don't!"

"Because the kid isn't here." Even in his sudden anger Buck noted that Chris still couldn't say his name.

"It's not about JD," he said definitely, and he felt a small, unkind glee before squashing it firmly at Chris's faint flinch.

Chris said nothing, and said it loudly.

Buck sighed, watching his breath cloud in front of him, and rested his forehead on the pane. "It's not, Chris. I need -- I need to figure out if I'm doing it for the right reasons, before I start that again." He stopped. He couldn't bring himself to say the rest of it -- that he didn't know how to talk to women; that he felt like by using Elena he'd shamed himself more thoroughly than he knew how to clean. He knew she hadn't cared. She'd been using him too, had been quite clear about it on the night she told him over a glass of red wine so fine that it was like silk on the tongue that her husband was a fool; that she knew who he was, could guess what he wanted, and offered a quid pro quo. Everybody would win, she said.

"Nobody wins," he said under his breath.

"Buck?"

Buck turned. "Nothing. Let me get that." He took one of the bowls off Chris and scooped discarded wrappers into it before heading for the kitchen. It barely felt like Christmas Day apart from the snow and the relentless jollity on the tv between plays. They hadn't talked about it; it just worked out that way. Chris had given him a couple of imported cds he'd been thinking about picking up; he'd given Chris a new leather jacket, brown, not black. Chris had just looked at him when he opened it and nodded, knowing what Buck was trying to say.

The best thing about knowing a guy the best part of fifteen years was you didn't have to pretend to believe the bullshit any more; but you knew when to let it ride too. They'd quietly allowed each other to ignore it. It didn't feel as grim as the first year after Sarah and Adam had gone. Buck's lips tightened. Well, that would be to do with the lack of a bomb crater in the drive, and Chris being conscious and sober.

Last year had been better than the first one with all of them. Chris had enjoyed having everyone around, enjoyed the rowdiness that they brought into the big, lonely house. Between them, they hadn't been much on Christmas. Vin and JD had spent every year with their parents until they died -- JD's mother when he was nineteen, Vin's father when he was twenty-two, and both still missed them. Chris, well, everyone knew about Chris, and Buck hadn't felt much better than he. Nathan was torn between hating the enormous clan get-togethers of Raine's family and not wanting to upset his wife by heading out to Chris's ranch. And Josiah seemed as conflicted as any of them, seeming to believe that Christmas was for gullible fools, while at the same time practicing his own small acts of cheer and charity. Buck dumped the trash and rinsed out the bowl. He'd promised JD a year ago that next year would be better again. He looked up, still mechanically wiping out the bowl. Snow was falling, small whirling flakes that blurred in front of his eyes.

"Hey, kid," he said softly. "Happy Christmas."

Losing memories, one picture at a time

"B'why can' I remember?" he asked again. Maybe it was the drugs, but he couldn't figure it out. And that was another thing, "What's this f'ranyway?" he gestured at the shunt embedded in his arm vaguely. He couldn't move properly, couldn't think properly, couldn't even speak, and somehow, it all felt wrong, like clothes that itched, the wrong size, pulling in the wrong places, the shape of it not fitting.

"It's just some pain medication, and a mild sedative," the nurse said patiently, as though she'd told him a hundred times already. "Now, Doctor Kalil will talk to you later today about what we're going to do next." She smiled brightly, "You'd like to start getting up and around, I know, but it's going to take time, you've been a pretty sick kid for a while. We gonna sort out some physio, and get you up and running before you know it. You just gotta be patient, you know?"

He huffed under his breath. "Wha' happened? Was--" he frowned, trying to remember, "was dark, an' mountains, and --” blinding pain, slamming him forward, ripping at his back, and people shouting, and gunfire, and --

"You were in a car accident. It was in all the papers around here. You were crossing the road, barely stepped off the curb, and someone knocked you down, ran you over." She shivered. "They never found him." She shook her head, and then smiled again, "You're one lucky guy, you know? We weren't sure you were ever going to wake up."

"Oh." He shook his head, trying to match the words to the pictures in his head. He shook his head. "A car accident?" A... a silver car? He was crossing the road and a car hit him... but the pictures contradicted the whispering words -- fire on the mountain, screams, his screams, his pain and a car, a car and a crossing, fire on the mountain -- what's the rest, just a game, a rhyme, children's rhyme, not important -- fire on the mountain...

"I shouldn't be standing here chatting, I ought to let you get some rest." She reached over to the drug pump and squeezed it before he could protest.

"Don't un'stan'," he said, but she was already walking away, his eyes closing under the insistent drag of the drugs, and the soft voices whispering in his ear.

January 2, 2004:

"Chris, can I have a word?"

Chris Larabee looked up, ready to remark that Ezra never made do with just 'a word' and stopped. Standish was holding a file in his hands. Not an ATF one, but one of his own he suspected, and he looked unwontedly hesitant, almost anxious.

"Sure. Shut the door."

Ezra had already done so, even as Chris spoke, and sat on the edge of a chair, carefully picking the one that left the desk between them. He looked down at the file in his hands and lifted it, as though to hand it over, and Chris put his hand half out for it, then dropped it back to the table again.

"I -- “ He drew a deep, controlled breath. "I don't know what to do with this." He looked up, briefly. "I have certain acquaintances among, well, let us be honest. Among the intelligence community." A grim little smile flickered for a second, "However much of an oxymoron that description may be."

Chris felt cold. "What did you do?"

Ezra closed his eyes, then slid the file across the desk. "I looked too hard."

"You found him?" Chris breathed, and reached for the file, opening it with fingers that felt heavy and clumsy. "When, where?" There was no question of who 'he' was.

"Chris." The somber tone had him looking up, dragging his eyes off what he had already seen even in that swift glance was a censored military document. "I should tell you I received that file two days before Thanksgiving."

Anger slammed into him, "It's January!" But Ezra's gaze was steady and grief filled, and the anger drained away again. "Oh God, no..."

That steady gaze told him why he'd waited, said, 'I gave him Thanksgiving and Christmas. I looked again, harder, further, tried to find out I was wrong, this was wrong. And now, I'm sure, quite sure.'

His eyes burned, and he looked away, driving it all back. "Is there anything -- does it say how?"

"An accident, apparently involving mines." Ezra seemed steadier now that he had got the first part over with, and Chris wondered how he had done it, how he had participated in the muted festivities, in the toasts to absent friends, when he knew. Chris had been sure already, was surprised to find there had been a lingering sliver of hope that this confirmation shattered.

He swallowed, clearing his throat. "Mines? God." He winced. "Was it -- was it quick?"

Ezra's face tightened. "Read it, please. I find I am unable to--" He couldn't even finish the sentence, and Chris stared at the innocuous file.

Not easy then. Not quick.

God.

He pulled the papers out of the folder and scanned through them quickly. Between the thick black lines and the jargon, it was almost incomprehensible. Almost.

"It says death expected -- not that he died."

Ezra sighed, "I know, but I have not found any further medical records, not for JD Dunne, not anywhere."

"They could have changed his name, moved him somewhere secret," he said quickly then stopped himself, thinking, what are you doing? He's dead, this is it, the end. Stop grasping at straws.

Ezra shook his head. "What would be the point?" He waited a few seconds but Chris had nothing to say. "You see my dilemma. It is news, real, genuine news; but is it going to help or make things worse?"

And Chris got it. If he, who had known since days after JD's disappearance that the kid was dead, could be given new hope by this, nearly eight months afterwards. Given hope that somehow the kid had survived Mellors, only to -- his mind slowed, his thoughts working furiously. How much worse would this be for Buck, who had finally found a sort of equilibrium. He frowned at the papers.

"Military? What was he doing to step on a mine?"

Ezra shook his head. "I have racked my brain; I have called on every favor I could recall or fabricate, and after months," he looked defeated, "I have no idea."

"There's no name even, how can you be sure? Dammit, Ezra, what are you doing, bringing this to me? How could he be in the military? There's no conscription, people don't just get vanished in America only to turn up in military hospitals. This is some other poor bastard." He pushed it away, disgusted. That little sliver of hope hurt so badly. "What the hell were you thinking!"

"I swear, to the best of my knowledge, on my oath as your friend, as his friend, it is -- was -- him." Ezra stood. "Everything you have said, I have thought also. I have wished it was a lie; prayed there was a miraculous recovery; hoped that some other computer programmer, with five letters in his surname, and two in his first who was referenced. I have dwelled on this for two long months, Mr. Larabee," and Chris caught the change of address and it jolted him. "I have lived with this knowledge and I find it is a weight I cannot bear alone. And there is no one else I can tell."

"Buck--" Chris wasn't suggesting him so much as thinking, appalled, this will break Buck.

"He will see it as a reason to hope," Ezra said, needlessly. Gently.

"God, Ez," Chris said slowly. The two of them stared at each other in silence.

"I should return to my desk," Ezra said finally. He tried a small smile, and it mostly worked. "They probably believe that the silence signifies you have finally given in to the impulse to strangle me."

Chris smiled weakly back at him. "Don't stand too close. I might yet do it."

Ezra nodded and walked to the door. "Can I suggest that the file goes somewhere -- safe?"

Chris nodded. "He won't see it."

Ezra looked back at that, then turned and slipped out the door, closing it behind him with a soft click.

All thought of work had gone. Chris picked up the papers again, and began to read them again. Maybe this time the words wouldn't hurt as much. Maybe, if he read them enough, he'd numb them into silence.

My new best friend

"Hey there."

Steve turned his head slowly towards the door. A dark-haired man was waiting there, a smile on his face.

"I heard you'd woken up! How ya feeling?"

Steve looked at him, puzzled. There was something about him -- did he recognize him? He felt a tug of fear, and took a deep breath. He had to get over being terrified of everyone he met. Just because he didn't remember anything sensible, he didn't have to assume the world was out to get him.

"I'm sorry," he said, "do I know -- I don't -- I don't remember much before the accident. Do I know you?"

The man's eyes flickered, something passing across his face too fast for him to identify. "I heard," he said easily, and walked in. "You mind if I--" he gestured at the one chair, and Steve shook his head. "Thanks."

"No problem," he replied, careful not to let his words slur. The man stared at his feet for a long moment, and then looked up, speaking just as Steve did.

"I'm sorry but who are--"

"I guess I should tell you who I am, right?"

Steve nodded, then his eyes widened, "You've been in before? I -- do I remember you?"

The man grinned. "Yeah, kid. " He drew a deep breath. "I'm Harris Lucas, and I'm a friend of yours. Have been for years." He swallowed, "Been visiting you here since November." He met Steve's eyes and smiled, friendly and warm. "We've been through a lot together. I -- I've been visiting every week, but you didn't know me. Didn't seem to know I was there half the time, even after you woke up."

Steve flushed and ducked his head. "I -- it's retrograde amnesia. They tell me. I had a hard time waking up, separating dreams from reality. Sorry."

"I heard that, don't sweat it. I know all about it and I don't care that you don't remember me, okay? I'm just glad you're back," he smiled.

"You did?" Steve blinked. What about medical confidentiality?

A small smile quirked at Harris's face. "You haven't changed you know. Every thought you have goes straight across your face. I said I've known you a while?" Steve nodded. "I'm your legal next of kin."

Steve just looked at him. That didn't sound right, didn't feel right. Why would he give that to this man? Didn't - he reached for a name, and it danced out of reach. He sighed and gave up. Between the dreams, and the panic attacks, and the anxiety medication he was hard pressed to know what was real at the best of times. What had Pat said? Find your center, and accept that change is inevitable, but good.

I'm safe here, he told himself firmly, and breathed in deep, held it and breathed out slowly. The clawing feeling of an incipient panic attack dwindled, and he looked over.

"You okay?" Lucas said right on cue.

"Yeah, just -- just tried to 'mem'er, and couldn't and, well..." He looked away, embarrassed both that he was slurring, and that he couldn't remember someone who was close enough to him that he held his medical power of attorney, the only person to his knowledge that had taken the time to visit him, apparently repeatedly.

"God, you poor kid. I know I'd hate it if I couldn't remember stuff! God knows I'd hate it to happen to me."

"Really?" Steve stared at him. No one else had said this to him. The man nodded seriously, dark eyes sympathetic.

"I know you don't remember me from Adam, but we’re pretty good pals, kid. Hell, if I'd forgotten everything and ended up stuck in a hospital from November to February, I know you'd be standing right where I am."

Steve nodded hesitantly. Friends did that sort of thing, for friends. He yawned.

"Maybe I should go, I'm tiring you--"

"No--" he held out a hand and Harris startled him by taking it and squeezing briefly, before letting go. "Don' go. I -- 's lone'y, lonely here." He reddened, he hadn't meant to say any such thing, but there had been no one but nurses and therapists and the occasional doctor to talk to. Pat meant well, but her interest in what he had to say was professional, and everyone else just wanted to know if he was feeling any pain, if that hurt, or that, and could he move this.

"You sure?"

Steve nodded, unwilling to speak and slur more words.

"Maybe I can tell you a bit about me -- and what I know about you?"

He smiled and nodded eagerly. "Please," he said, and Harris nodded.

"Okay. Okay. Well. Where do I start..."

"Fam'y?"

"Family?" Harris looked down and sighed. "I'm sorry, kid. Your Momma died about eight years ago, when you were nearly eighteen. You never said anything about your father, and you always said you wished you had brothers, so I always assumed you didn't have anyone else. You never mentioned anyone else."

Steve's eyes closed and he turned his face away. No one. Mom... A smiling face, creamy skin with dark hair framing blue eyes filled with affection -- and an image of the same face, a small hole high in the temple. "She was shot--?"

Harris shook his head. "I think you said it was cancer."

"Oh." Steve flinched. "Sorry."

"Hey, hey, don't you apologize, Steve. You've lost just about everything that makes life worth living," Harris sounded absolutely serious. "Anything you want to know, anything you want to say, you just go ahead and say it to old Harris. I ain't going to tell anyone, and I'm not going to laugh at you, or yell at you."

Steve felt tears come to his eyes and blinked fiercely. "Okay," he said quietly. "Thanks."

Harris smiled at him, warmly. "Now, let's give you something good to think about."

Steve smiled, and drifted off to the sound of the man's voice, thinking, well, it's not so bad. I've got one friend.

Little steps

“I can do it!”

The nurse shook her head but backed off. “Well, you can try, if you would like, Mr. Harper,” she said doubtfully.

Steve looked at the bowl of applesauce and wondered why he was even bothering. Bland, uninteresting pap. It wasn’t even as though he needed it for nutrition, no, he got that from the nasal-gastric tube taped to his face. He carefully closed his hand around the spoon, and raised it, and smiled with relief when his hand obeyed. There had been a time when he wasn’t even able to lift the damn spoon.

Dip into the apple sauce, get that hand-eye thing going, get it to his mouth... open his mouth. He licked the spoon off and closed his eyes, savoring the tart flavor.

“That’s great, Steve,” the nurse said, and Steve glanced at her and glowered.

“You’re not supposed to manipulate me.” He tried to sound put out, and she just laughed.

“Whatever works, sweetie. Now you’re thinking about what you can do to show me, instead of what you can’t do yet.”

Steve shook his head, and carefully maneuvered another spoonful from the bowl to his mouth. When she came back twenty minutes later he had mostly cleared the bowl, just missing bits at the edges that needed finer coordination than he yet had.

“I think Doctor Thomson’s going to be real pleased when I tell him you nearly cleared your plate, Mr. Harper,” she said cheerfully, and lifted the tray away.

“When can I have real food?”

“That is real food,” she said firmly.

“No it isn’t. I want something I can get my teeth into. Some meat, a nice rich steak, rare, dripping with juice, and some fries, crisp and crunchy,” he paused, almost drooling at the remembered taste and smell.

“In a couple of weeks, we should be able to get you up to proper solids,” she said gently. “Mr. Harper, you do realize that you have not used your esophagus for several months, don’t you?”

Steve shrugged and picked at his blanket.

“Well, it’s true. And it’s like every other muscle in your body -- without exercise it’s going to take time to work up to using it the way you always have. If I tried feeding you a steak and fries now, you’d probably choke to death.”

“I’d be willing to take the chance,” Steve muttered and she laughed again.

“Well, we’re not. Our insurers would scream loud enough to be heard on the moon, you know.” She walked over to the windows, and looked at him. “Do you want a little nap? I can close the blinds.”

“No!” He stopped, and shook his head. “Um. Can I -- is there any chance I can sit in the chair this afternoon? See outside?” He stopped, hoping.

She looked thoughtful, then nodded. “As long as you let us know if you get tired.”

“Sure.” She looked doubtfully at him and he smiled, “I promise, okay?”

“Well, okay. Let me call Joslei, and we’ll move you in a minute.”

Steve smiled at her happily, and waited while she left the room to find the orderly.

February 2004: fear of falling

Steve stared at the parallel bars with determination. He'd spent months getting to this point, and he was damned if this was going to stop him....

He rubbed his sweating palms dry on his shorts, and nodded at Cal.

"Ready?" he asked Steve, and Steve drew a deep breath and deliberately placed his hands on the bars.

"Ready."

Cal gently released his grip around Steve's waist, and Steve was standing on his own. This time he wasn't going to fall. He concentrated on his breathing, keeping it steady. He could feel his heart rate accelerate and closed his eyes, trying to control the irrational panic that had frozen him every time they had tried this.

"Breathe," Cal reminded him softly, and Steve shook off the words, an unwanted distraction.

He breathed in, held. Breathed out, held. Not too often or too deep. Slowly the light-headedness of hyperventilation dwindled, and his heartbeat slowed. He didn't allow himself to relax, but continued, and then, carefully not thinking about it, he slid his hands forward a little way, and lifted his left foot, swung it forward, and then his right. And his hands. And his feet. Until he was at the end of the bars and Cal was praising him effusively.

Steve grinned at him, and looked up. For a moment he could have sworn that the look on Harris's face was cold and calculating, but it must have been a trick of the light as he lit up, a smile beaming across his face.

"I did it!" Steve gasped out. His cheeks were starting to ache with the grin, but he couldn't stop. "I think I got past it!"

Cal patted him on the back, and nodded. "It's a good start, a real good start, Steve."

Steve's breath was shuddering out of him. He was good. It was good. He'd walked, and not fallen, and it was good.

God.

He concentrated on his breathing. He'd gotten past it, let it go, and he hadn't fallen. He just had to not think about it. Just like not thinking about pink elephants. Someone laughed and he looked quickly round, but no one was even smiling, and he let his head fall forward again, sweat rolling down his face. He jerked, as another flash momentarily blacked out the world around him.

He gasped for air, and felt a comforting hand grip his shoulder.

"Steve?"

"I'm fine. I'll be fine," he lied. The flash of memory had gone, if that was what it was, leaving only the fear of falling -- plunging through endless, empty night, back arched, limbs splayed, nothing below but the rush of the wind, and the warmth of his pack on his back, and the harsh rasp of his breath in his throat as he dragged oxygen from the mask pinching his face, and the pressure of the helmet strap under his jaw...

Fire, fire on the mountain...

"Steve? Steve!" He was on his knees, hands splayed on the ground, breath coming in great gasping sobs. He tried to speak and nothing came out but a low, animal moan. Feet rushed towards them and a pinprick in his arm came as a relief, but not as much as the dark oblivion that followed.

March 2004: getting better all the time

"Come on, Steve, I know you're tired, but let's just squeeze a couple more reps in, okay?"

"Don' wanna," he protested, but it was no good. Lara was turning him in the water and guiding his hands back onto the parallel bars.

"You're just saying that because you want to get back upstairs." She swam slowly alongside him as he walked laboriously through the water. It felt thick and heavy, not thin and light like water was supposed to be, and every step was a struggle.

It was as if she could read his mind, because Lara smiled at him. "Just think, you couldn't manage any of this only a month ago. You've gained so much ground, Steve, now, one more step. Just one more. And another one. There!" She cheered softly as he reached the end of the bars and swung himself around. "You are improving so fast, you're not going to need me pretty soon."

"Al'ays nee' you," he said and frowned with concentration when she looked at him. "All ways, need, you," he enunciated carefully.

"Well done. No, Steve, you're going to graduate from hydrotherapy pretty soon, I reckon," she offered her hands, and when he took them, towed him to the side of the pool. "We'll cut back to a couple of sessions a week, just to keep you moving, get you swimming, would you like that?"

He nodded, and pulled himself onto the tiles, then dragged his knees up under him. A moment later she was there with the walker, and his robe, and he carefully pulled it on, secured the belt tightly, and stood, wobbling a little at the contrast between the buoyant water, and the heaviness of dry land. He smiled, and she grinned back at him.

"You okay to get back up to your room?" she asked, and he nodded. "You take care, okay? See you tomorrow, Steve."

"Seeya, Lara," he agreed, and headed slowly back up to his room. He was supposed to do this in a wheelchair, but refused. It was bad enough that he kept slurring his words when he was tired, and giving the impression that he was brain dead, without being trundled to and fro like a baby in a buggy.

He prodded the call button, and waited for an elevator to his floor. A couple of minutes later he was turning to sit on the side of his bed. Cal should be along soon for his cool down massage. He rolled his shoulders and stretched. If it wasn't for his back and withered leg muscles he'd have been out of here, and back at work weeks ago.

"Hi, Steve." Right on time, Cal Negash walked in and cracked his knuckles. "Ready?"

"I guess." He rolled onto his belly on the bed, and let himself drift as the physical therapist worked the aches, kinks and cramps out of his back and legs. Eventually he fell asleep, only vaguely aware when Cal finished up and covered him with his blankets.

"Hey kid. This a good time?"

He opened his eyes blearily at the soft call, and turned his head. "Hey, Harris, come on in," he smiled at the man hovering by the door. "Was doing hydro all afternoon -- Lara wiped me out."

Harris smiled and took a seat by Steve's bed. "Howya doing?"

Steve shifted onto his back and raised the bed until he was sitting comfortably. "Pretty good," he yawned hugely and slapped a hand over his mouth. "'Scuse me. She says we're pretty much done, she's gonna get me swimming the next session. Been down at the pool again and then Cal knocked me out with those magic hands of his."

"Living the high life," Harris teased gently, and Steve chuckled sourly.

"Yeah, the high life." He glanced over at the window of his private hospital room.

"Ah, don't be like that. When I think--"

"You know, Harris, I wish people would stop telling me to look on the bright side. Can't I just wallow in my hard earned misery here?" But he rubbed his hand across his face and smiled, well aware by the end of his brief rant of how ridiculous he sounded.

"Tough day?"

Steve shrugged. "Nah. I'll deal. I just want out, you know?"

"But cutting back on the hydro, that's good, right?"

"Yeah." He sighed, and scowled down at the blankets covering his scrawny legs.

"Lotta places woulda turned you out already," Harris said, not looking at him. "Been a couple of months, and you're doing great. Walking, talking. Hell, conscious."

Steve shrugged dispiritedly. "If I'm so much better, why don't I remember anything? I try and I try, and it's like it just gets further away, not closer." He clamped his mouth shut, stopping himself before he lost it.

"It'll come back," Harris leaned forwards and gripped his knee gently. "When you're ready, it'll come back. They keep telling you that, right? Don't give up, Stevie."

"What damn good am I to anybody, Harris?" He turned away blindly. "Everything I know is because you or one of the nurses or therapists or doctors or psychiatrists told me. I don't even recognize my own name."

"You're a tough kid. You'll be fine."

"I know. I'm tough. I'm strong," he said, sing-song, repeating the words of others. "Tell me this, Har, how am I going to make it? How am I going to survive for one lousy day out there," he waved an angry arm at the world beyond the hospital, "when I can't even remember what I used to do for a living, never mind how to do it."

Harris smiled sympathetically. "Is that what's bugging you? Look, you work for the Mellors Founda--"

"I know that! You were the one who told me!"

"Hold your horses, Steve. You work there as a computer analyst. We research potential threats to the community, both the US, and the world in general. Your specialty was viruses and worms. You are just about the best in the world, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise."

"But I don't remember any of it! Nothing! It's all gone, don't you understand? It's been three months and I can barely remember the alphabet, I won't even make a decent mailroom employee!"

"You aren't going to be working in the mail room." Harris glanced at the door briefly, and then shifted his chair closer. "Look, when you feel up to it I'm going to bring you a laptop in, get you back at the wheel, so to speak."

"What good's that going to do?"

Harris grinned. "Well, let's just say, a little bird mentioned to me that your memory deficits all seem to be personal. I'm betting, we sit you in front of a good old fashioned pc, and you're going to know exactly what to do."

"Don't talk crap," he snapped, hope pulling hard at his throat. He swallowed it and looked away. "Don't joke about this, please?"

"I ain't joking, kid." Harris said solemnly. "Word of a Lucas. You can talk; you know about things like alphabets and mailrooms. I'm betting, sit you in front of a pc and you're going to be up and running in minutes."

Steve shuddered, and dropping back onto his pillows, laid an arm across his eyes, trying to pull himself together.

"Hey, it's okay, it's only me." A hand squeezed at his knee.

"Thanks, Har," Steve said hoarsely, not moving his arm. "I -- just -- thanks."

"Pleasure, kid." Harris's voice sounded as strangled as Steve felt, but he couldn't bring himself to look, not even when he heard the man stand. A double pat on his knee, and then Harris was saying goodbye.

"Night, Har. Thanks."

"You won't thank me when we start you back at work before you've even left the hospital. I'll be by tomorrow with a computer if I can talk IT out of one."

Steve nodded, and when the door clicked shut, allowed a few hot tears to soak into his pajama sleeve. Harris was a good friend. He'd been the first person he'd seen after the nurses and doctors had finished rushing around when he first woke up. Apparently the guy had been visiting him daily, the only person to keep faith in him when everyone else had given up, and assumed that he would never emerge from his coma.

When he'd asked him why, Harris had blushed, shuffling his feet, and mumbled something about thinking of Steve as a good friend, a real good friend, and feeling responsible. Steve smiled weakly to himself, remembering his puzzlement and his gratitude. He'd kept coming, bringing little gifts, pictures, mementoes, and recently, other people who he was assured were also his friends. Kate, acutely uncomfortable and awkward, barely able to even look at him. Michael, tall, distinguished, in his fifties, the chill in his eyes belying the warmth of his greeting. Steve had wondered why the man had even bothered, until Harris told him that he was his senior manager at work.

He didn't really notice when he fell asleep again.

March 2004: The dim and the dark cloths

"Good morning, Steve," Pat chirped brightly, and Steve grinned at her.

"Sure sounds like you think it is! Guess you had a good night last night?"

She grinned wickedly back and held out her left hand, where a small diamond sparkled.

"He didn't?" He leaned forwards and smiled at her.

"He did," she beamed.

"Oh, that's great, Pat. Fantastic. Congratulations. Have you made any plans, or are you just waiting and seeing?"

"No plans just yet. Perhaps sometime in the fall next year. I always loved autumn colors." Her smile turned professional. "How are you doing, Steve?"

He smiled, "Not too bad. I've been having some odd dreams, mostly about computers," he laughed. "I think it's since Harris brought me a laptop. I've just been completely obsessed with playing with it."

"No problems with it then?"

"Nah. As long as I don't think about how I'm doing it, everything just comes back like it never went away."

"That's really good to hear, Steve. How do you feel about that?"

"Good, really, good," he smiled widely. "It -- I don't know if I can describe it. I get into it, and it's like flying. I feel useful, like there's something I can do that's worth doing."

"Steve, you remember what we said about that," Pat chided.

"I know, I know," he grinned, "'I am a unique and worthwhile person in and of myself, regardless of anything else'. But Pat, it's just so good to be doing something where I don't feel like I'm stumbling in darkness the whole time. It's like I open up a whole world by turning that machine on, full of things I didn't know I knew, and they're just there, waiting for me to open the door."

"That's good, Steve, really good." She paused and added casually, "Have you been getting any memories coming back?"

Steve shrugged. "I don't think so. And if they are, I can't place them. Probably just dreams and random stuff. Nothing that makes any sense."

"Why don't you tell me about them, and we can talk about that."

Steve shifted in his chair. "I don't know, it all seems kind of dumb when I-I just..."

"Is it the brother thing again?" she asked gently and he ducked his head.

"I don't know what's going on with me. I mean, I know I don't have any brothers. You guys have shown me the pictures of my Mom and me. I just keep thinking... I don't know. It's stupid."

"If you're feeling it then it's not stupid, Steve. It's real to you." She paused a long moment and asked, "When you 'remember'," she used her fingers to quote the word, "having brothers, how does it make you feel?"

"I--I don't know, I..."

"Just free associate. First word into your head: brother--"

"Free. Safe. Home."

"How do those things make you feel?"

"Good." Steve smiled faintly.

"And when you remember that they aren't real?"

He looked away and shrugged. "Lonely. Sad. Lost."

"Those are very interesting words. There's a theme there, you're feeling maybe isolated? Disconnected? Is that how you feel?"

Steve shrugged again. "I guess so. I mean, I'm stuck in hospital. I can't even remember anything or anyone outside of it. I see maybe six people in a week -- you, Doc Thomson, Lara, Cal, Harris... It's like, I don't know. Like the rest of the world doesn't exist any more. There's just this, and you guys. Out there," he gestured at the window, "out there it's all real. A whole world of things I used to know. People I used to know, and they've all gone away." He ducked his head, and added quietly, hoping she wouldn't hear, "and I want them back."

"Hmm. Is Mr. Lucas the only external visitor you've seen?"

"Pretty much. Har's a good guy. Didn't give a shit that I couldn't remember him, didn't care if I couldn't walk or talk properly. Just kept on coming to see me." He smiled. Har had done all that and more, and without him he wasn't entirely sure he would be as together as he was.

"I'm glad, he sounds like a good friend."

"The best."

"So, Steve, this 'loneliness' you mentioned. Do you think that might be a reason why you're dreaming up 'brothers'?"

"To fill up those empty spaces?" he asked, startled at the idea. "I -- they seem so real..." he said longingly, and Pat shook her head.

"But you know--"

"Yeah, yeah, I know, they're just dreams." He looked away so she couldn't see his misery. "What did you call it the other week? Wish fulfillment?"

"That was in a different context, Steve."

"But basically, you're saying I'm feeling lonely so I'm making up this family to make myself feel better."

"Is that what you think?"

"I, I guess so." He felt like the sunshine outside had just turned to gray, and looked outside, just to check. There was still snow on the ground, and the sky was a blinding blue. "It's nearly spring, isn't it?"

"Yeah, I guess it is." She followed his line of sight, and looked back at Steve with a gentle smile. "I bet you wish you could get outside."

"Yeah," he said longingly. "I wish I knew when I was going to get out of here." He shrugged. "Go home."

"Where's home, Steve?"

"I don't know!" he shouted, and jumping to his feet walked away, stopping only when he reached the far wall. "I wish I knew," he mumbled to himself. "It's just empty spaces in my head. Words without pictures or feelings or anything!"

"Do you think maybe you want a family to fill up those empty places?"

"Maybe. I mean, I guess if I want a family so badly I'm making one up for myself, then stuff like home is just going to remind me that I don't have them -- anyone, any more." He shook his head. "I'm just so confused." He walked slowly back to his chair and sat down again.

"But you're not on your own, Steve."

"Yeah, but you and the other guys, you're paid to talk to me. I mean, no offense and all, but Harris is the only person in the world, right now, who isn't seeing me because he can sign it off on a report at the end of the day in exchange for a paycheck."

Pat laughed, "You've got other friends. And when you get out of here, you'll probably find that more memories will return once you're in familiar surroundings."

"Really?"

"I'm not making any promises, Steve. But even if they don't, if the memories never return, you're going to make friends again. You really need to be looking forward, seizing the opportunity." She smiled wryly, "You wouldn't believe how many people would envy you the chance to start over with a clean slate."

He frowned. "Well, I'm not one of them, so forgive me for feeling less than wildly excited about this brave new world where I know nobody and nothing." He stood again and turned away from her, wrapping his arms around himself.

"Steve, Steve, come on, sit down."

"My back's aching in that chair," he said tersely, without looking at her. It wasn't even a lie.

"Do you want to use the couch?"

He looked at it and rolled his eyes. "No."

"Steve, where's all this antipathy coming from? I know you don't like to think about it, but you have to realize--"

"Fuck reality! Reality sucks." Steve snapped. "I'm up to here with reality."

"Who's saying that, Steve?"

He shrugged.

"Come on. You remember our discussion about the child, the adult and the parent. Who do you think was responding to me there?"

"Child," he said sullenly.

"And why are you choosing to respond that way?"

"I'm just frustrated! All right? Happy? I wish I could remember! I wish this would all go away, and I didn't have a scar the size of a fist in my side, and scars all over my back and neck, and I could walk without limping, and talk without slurring when I get tired, and think and remember, and have everything back the way it used to be. I want to remember how it used to be!" He was crying by the end of it, and she didn't comment, didn't touch him, just pushed a box of tissues over to him and politely pretended not to notice as he blew his nose and wiped his eyes.

"Does your 'brother fantasy' make any of those feelings go away?" she asked after some time, when he had calmed down, and waited patiently for his reply.

He drew a deep breath, and shook his head, feeling on the verge of tears again, and drove them back.

"Steve?"

"No," he said hoarsely. "It," he swallowed, "it just makes them worse."

"There's nothing wrong with fantasy, as long as you are aware that it is fantasy," she said quietly, and scribbled for a few minutes in a pad, then ripped off a sheet. "I'm going to suggest that we review your medication, okay? Maybe see if we can give you something to reduce those dreams you've been having, maybe help you think more clearly about all this."

"Okay," he agreed, defeated.

"Good. Steve, I know maybe you don't feel like it, but you've made a big breakthrough here."

Steve laughed shortly. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Well, I'll see you again on Wednesday, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." He walked to the door and turned back, "Pat, just, thanks. I don't mean to be rude, I just---"

"That's okay, Steve," she said easily, smiling at him with the charm and friendliness that never reached her eyes. "That's what I'm here for."

"Well. See you day after tomorrow."

"Bye, Steve."

"Bye, Pat."

March 13: going 'home'

"Hey, kid! Friday thirteenth! Unlucky for some, eh?"

Steve froze.

"Steve?" Harris Lucas walked closer to where he was sitting perched on the side of his bed. "Hey, you okay?"

"Don't call me kid, okay?" He felt cold, like someone had walked over his grave. Goosebumps rose on his back and he shook the chill off. He forced a smile, and was pleased to see that Harris didn't seem to notice his uneasiness.

"Sure, runt," he grinned easily. "You ready?"

"Ready? I've been ready for months."

Harris laughed, "Well, now you get to bust out of this joint. Come on, I'll get your bag, and we'll let the nice orderly wheel you out."

"I can walk!" Steve scowled, his arms folded tightly over his chest as he stood. He repressed the his eager smile as he settled his feet into the Nike Airwalks that Harris had brought him, and glanced down at the blue jeans and warm sweater, so much better than slippers and pajamas. Finally.

"I know."

"In fact, wasn't that what I just spent the last oh, you know four months learning how to do? What if you put me in that thing and I forget?"

"Oh, now Mr. Harper, is that likely?" the orderly asked as he applied the brakes to the hospital issue wheelchair.

"You never know," he argued, then sighed when they both just looked at him, and stalked over and settled himself in the chair. "Happy?"

"Ecstatic." Harris murmured and Steve couldn't help smiling.

"I can't tell you how glad I am to be getting out of this damn place, no offense," he threw over his shoulder at the orderly.

"None taken," the man smiled back. "Been here a while?"

"Five months," he said with a sigh. "One unconscious, four conscious."

"Got to be pretty happy about that. You got plans?" The orderly saw Harris' frantic head shaking too late, and bit his lip.

"Nah. Just want to get home." Steve looked up and smiled at Harris. "If this big bonehead'll get me there," he added and ducked as Harris swatted at him. "Missed!" he crowed, and Harris just shook his head.

"Come on, kid, let's go." Harris gripped the handles of the wheelchair and guided Steve down the corridor.

"You never showed me any pictures of my place," Steve said a few minutes later as they emerged from the elevator.

Harris was quiet a little too long, and Steve twisted around to look up at him.

"Not much to say. Little apartment, clean, quiet location. Bedroom; bathroom; living room; tiny kitchen." Harris smiled at him. "You'd only been in there a few weeks when the accident happened. Half your stuff is still in boxes."

"Where'd you get the pictures?"

"Oh, you had them out already. You'd shown me one time when I came over." Harris shook his head. "Don't worry, okay? It's coming back, a bit at a time."

Steve sighed and dropped his head. He turned his hands over, staring at the palms, wishing he could remember any of the things that Harris, Mike and Kate had told him he had done.

"Here we go," Harris stopped just outside the automatic doors, and Steve lifted his head, a huge smile spreading across his face. He bounced to his feet out of the chair.

"Free!" He grinned back at Harris, "Come on, man, let's blow this joint, before they catch us and force us back to the water torture!"

Harris laughed. "Car's this way, runt." He slapped Steve's shoulder and then turned the gesture into a one armed hug. "Let's get you home."

"Home sounds good," Steve grinned. "Home sounds real good."

He jogged off in the direction Harris had indicated, then turned, walking backwards as he watched Harris. The man's face lightened immediately he saw Steve watching.

"You'll break your neck doing that," he said mildly, and jogged towards Steve. "Come on, it's the black Subaru."

"Cool. What's a Subaru look like?" he asked unselfconsciously. If he couldn't remember, he couldn't remember.

"Like that." Harris pointed his keys at a car some forty yards away and its lights flashed in response.

"Very nice," he smiled.

"Get in. I'll put your luggage away." Harris hefted Steve's small suitcase and popped the trunk as Steve slid into the comfortable seat.

"Hey, Har?" Steve asked as he fiddled with the radio tuner.

"Yeah?" He started the car and pulled out almost silently.

"Do I have wheels?"

"Yup."

"Well?"

Harris gave him a teasing glance and shook his head. "Wait and see."

No place like home

Steve frowned as he looked around. A stack of unpacked boxes was piled off in a corner, marring the almost perfect gray. Walls, carpet, floor. He walked over to the window and looked out, fingering the thin cream curtains. Far below the street was nearly empty. As he watched, a car passed through, and then the street was still.

He leaned his head on the cold glass, and tried not to think about how strange this all was. This didn't feel like home.

"You'd only been here a few weeks before the accident." Harris's voice startled him.

"Yeah, you said." He didn't look up. At least the hospital had become familiar. Now he had to begin again.

"I got some food and stuff in."

"Thanks." He did look up at that, and tried to smile. "If you wanna go, I'm good here."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm a big boy, Lucas," Steve snapped. His shoulders slumped a moment later. "Sorry, Har, I'm just a bit freaked by all of this." He waved his hand vaguely at the apartment. "I don't remember any of it. Nothing."

Harris shrugged sympathetically. "You haven't remembered anything else yet, have you?"

Steve shook his head.

"Well, why'd you remember this place?" Harris looked around and shook his head. "Damn kid, I'm going to take you shopping this weekend. Get some stuff to brighten this all up."

"Yeah," he looked around. "It's pretty grim in here."

"You were busy," Harris excused him, and patted him tentatively on the shoulder. "Look, do you want to get yourself settled in? I can come back later if you’d rather?"

"Sure."

"Or I can stay?" Harris looked worried and Steve scowled. Much as he liked Harris, he didn’t want the man around while he found his balance again. He’d been longing to go home for months. And now he was here, and it felt nothing like he’d expected.

"I'll be fine, Har," he snapped. and then smiled weakly. "I’m sorry. I guess I'm kinda anxious to get back to standing on my own feet, you know?"

"Sure, sure," his friend smiled. "So, ten tomorrow okay? I'll take you shopping if you want?” He grinned wickedly, “Use some of that salary that’s been accumulating while you were lazing around."

Steve smiled briefly. "Yeah, that'd be good. Thanks."

Harris opened the door and let himself out. "Okay. Ten, then. Seeya, kid."

"Yeah, sure. Later." He waved vaguely and then the door shut and he hurried to it, flipping the lock and deadbolts. He leaned on the door with a sigh. Thank God he's gone.

After a long moment he inhaled deeply, and straightened. "Guess I should take a look around."

It didn't take long. There was a queen-sized bed in the small bedroom, along with a dresser and a half filled bookcase. The closet was nearly empty. It looked like he'd only unpacked his work stuff, three or four suits and some dressy shirts. There were a couple of pairs of jeans folded in a shelf, but almost nothing else that was casual.

He fingered the material of one of the suit jackets. It felt warm and heavy, and he smiled at the high quality of the fabric, and then wondered how he knew. And wondered how he’d been able to afford this stuff on a government pay packet.

The bathroom had a shaving kit, seemingly unused, and some shower gel, nothing else. Not even towels. He frowned. How the hell had he managed without towels? There was nothing in the bedroom closet, and the cupboard under the washbasin just held a dried out sponge and some toothpaste. His toothbrush must be the one Harris brought him.

Amazing that the landlord had kept it all here for five, six months. He wondered if Harris had had something to do with that too. Good of him.

He wandered out to the living room and unpacked the small case that had come with him from the hospital. Pajamas, a couple of pairs of sweats, underwear, his wash kit.

Why did he have two shaving kits?

He shook his head, mystified. Maybe Harris had brought him a new one. But not a new toothbrush. Odd. But the thought was fleeting and he brushed it away. Whatever.

The kitchen cupboards were full to bursting. Harris must have gone completely nuts in some store or other. Four kinds of cereal; three kinds of bread; six kinds of cookies... He broke open one of the packs of cookies and munched contentedly. There were two huge jugs of juice in the fridge that he ignored, some bottles of soda and beer; a couple of fresh pizzas on the shelves and a small container of milk that he drained in three gulps.

"Mmm. More milk," he grinned, and inhaled another triple choc-chip cookie. He headed back into the living room and stared at the boxes. Another two cookies met their doom as he thought about what to do with them.

"Ah, what the hell," he muttered, and grabbed the top box and ripped it open. "Oh, cool!" The box was full of computer games, none of which he recognized, "But I expected that!" he grinned. "Now for something to play 'em on."

Five hours later the cookies were a distant memory and the apartment was looking like some kind of store had exploded. DVDs, CDs, were stacked in teetering piles, draped with clothes; books rubbed shoulders with rollerblades, shoes half hidden under balls. Steve himself was in a small, clear area in front of the television, stretching his shoulders from the long stint playing something called Halo.

He sat back with a grin and looked around. "Maybe I ought to pick this up some," he said cheerfully. He felt happier than he had in months. There were school certificates, yearbooks, knick-knacks and oddments; souvenirs, photographs of places he didn't remember, and postcards from people he didn't know, but somehow it seemed more like home than he had felt in four long, lonely months.

He settled back and started flipping through the photo albums, a contented half smile on his face.

Ah, brave new world...

Steve smiled shyly as he followed Harris Lucas through the big open plan room.

"Okay, this is your cube, okay?"

Steve nodded, looking around at the little areas fenced off from each other with chest high screen. His desk had a picture of his mother, smiling up at him, and he almost automatically walked over and picked it up, staring into her smiling hazel eyes and the pale, oval face, his own in a feminine cast. "Heather Valency Dunne," he whispered, as if in a dream.

"Who?" Harris said sharply, and Steve blinked and put the picture down.

"My Mom -- Heather Valency Harper. That's right?"

"Yeah, yes, I think that's right." Harris looked at him closely but Steve was already examining the machine in front of him.

"Nice." Steve looked up and grinned. "All mine?"

"All yours," Harris grinned back. "There's a couple of projects on the spike that you can have a look at, if you want, but really, today, just get yourself settled in, catch up on your email--" Steve groaned, "I'll show you the kitchen and the rest room later. Don't be surprised if people drop by -- we're a friendly crew."

"Okay," he replied, but he was already engrossed in booting up his computer and reading the specs as it ran through the start-up sequence. "Wow."

Harris laughed. "I'll leave you to it." He patted Steve on the shoulder and left.

Steve waited for the thing to log all the way through and logged himself in with the ID and password that had worked on the laptop Har had brought over. As promised, all the data on it had been transferred already, and despite Harris's comment there were only two emails waiting for him -- one from HR to welcome him back and set up a meeting to discuss any special equipment or needs during his transition period, and one from someone whose name he didn't recognize.

Kate Anderson. He racked his brain, and vaguely remembered a petite blonde who'd visited a couple of times in hospital. He opened it..

"Hey, Steve,

Glad to hear you're back -- I've got a get together of the fourth floor geeks this weekend -- if you want to come over, just say. Harris is coming too, or I can give you details if you're interested.

Kate"

Huh. Well, that was nice of her, and it wasn't like he had anything planned for the weekend. He hit reply and accepted, asking for directions.

He sat back and poked around his desk -- nothing interesting in the drawers, either he was the world's most boring guy or someone had cleaned them out over the last three months. He grinned, and pulled a small cache of cookies, chips and Twinkies from his backpack and stuffed them in the top drawer. These wouldn't go off even in a couple of millennia. All that damn junk food had so many preservatives that he wouldn't need embalming when the time came. He grinned then hesitated. A man was mock scowling at him, a big black guy with his arms folded. He blinked and Nate was gone.

He shook his head, the name slipping out of his grasp as quickly as it had come to him. He reached for the first of the two files on his desk and rolled his eyes. He could do this one hand tied behind his back. They basically were looking at a variation on search and replace cryptography. Convert it out of ASCII and see where you went from there. Why the hell had it ended up on his desk? He was amnesiac, not retarded.

The second folder looked much more interesting. A suspected terrorist had been captured with an electronic package that looked like it might contain critical data -- but it was wrapped up in some complicated encryption with some sort of cycling, probably personal, key. Best of all, the notes from previous attempts made it clear that it was also wrapped in a series of highly aggressive viruses and worms. Left untouched, it burrowed through a network looking for a connection to the outside. Attacked it destroyed the computer it was on, removing critical files, reducing file tables to rubble, and chewing right through most operating systems, and then cascaded its way through the network -- and presumably, if it got loose, through as many other computers as it could before getting stopped.

"Someone really didn't want this broken," Steve murmured. He twisted the CD in his hand for a thoughtful second, and then shrugged. What the hell. He shoved it in. What could it do from a disk?

A minute later he was leaning on the reboot button and prodding the CD drawer open with a straightened paperclip.

"Playing with the Antonov file?"

Steve snapped his head around and winced, hand automatically going to rub at the ache. A blonde woman -- Kate!

"Hi Kate," he smiled shyly, and looked at the cd in his hand. "Yeah. Thought I'd take a look and see if it was really that bad."

She shook her head. "I had that for a month and didn't make a dent.” Her eyes were cold as she spoke and he wondered how he’d managed to piss her off. Maybe she hadn’t wanted to hand the project on -- but it wasn’t like it was his, they’d just given it to him to look at. "Hope you're feeling okay. That's a mind bender at the best of times."

Steve frowned, then shrugged. "I guess they wouldn't have given it to me if they didn't think I could do something worthwhile with it," he said easily. Her smile looked forced.

"Glad you're coming on Saturday," she said instead, "it should be fun -- Tim and Sarah said they're coming -- do you remember them?" Steve shook his head, but before he could say anything she looked horrified -- or rather looked liked someone playing through the expressions she thought indicated horrified. "I'm sorry, I forgot. I'll make sure to introduce you to everyone."

"Thanks," Steve said flatly. Maybe he shouldn't have been so keen to accept. "I don't want to be any trouble."

"No --no, I'm sorry," she said swiftly. It seemed to Steve that she looked away to somewhere and back again, and he turned to follow her eyes, and found Harris watching them. The man turned away as though it was mere coincidence that he'd been looking at them at all, and when he looked back to Kate, she was looking puzzled.

"You okay?"

"Yeah, I thought -- never mind." He looked back at the folder, expecting her to leave. Instead she perched on the edge of his desk and pulled the folder over towards her.

"Yeah. Whoever wrote that one wasn't playing games," she said, and Steve blinked.

"Any tips?"

"Keep it off the network!" She grimaced, and added, "Bitter experience. We all think we know better, and this one has been right round most of us the last year."

"Year?" He frowned and checked the date on the folder. Its first entry was a couple of weeks before his accident back in November. "There's nothing more than about four months old in here."

Kate shrugged. "I think it got to the point we were just hashing over the same things again and again."

"But you didn't abandon it?"

Kate shook her head, her face bemused. "National security. They never give up."

"Huh." He wondered whether to ask or not, she seemed so prickly and unpredictable. "Did I work on it -- you know, before the accident?"

Her face looked weird for a second, then cleared. "I don't think so. You were waiting for the last of your clearances to come through."

"Right."

""I ought to let you get on with it," she slid off her perch and slapped him lightly on the shoulder. "Luck, kid," she said, and Steve nodded.

"Thanks, Kate." He chanced a smile, "I'm looking forward--"

But she was already walking away, and Steve finished the rest of his sentence to the empty cubicle. "-- to Saturday." He sighed. "Guess I should have a look."

He logged in again, and began the tedious, meticulous process of setting up an unbreachable test environment partition for the decryption project.

Well, at least he couldn't complain they were taking it easy on him.

To sleep, to dream no more...

Where the hell was Tiengo anyway? JD frowned and rummaged through the file looking for a map that he was sure was in there. Yeah. He examined it, then read through the printout clipped to it. His lips twitched in an amused smile when he noted the source of the information: CIA Factbook: Extended Edition. Well, someone somewhere had a sense of humor. He had heard of Tiengo, barely. He and Casey had considered going ski-ing there, high in the Andes. If he remembered correctly, the place had been desperate to attract tourists, so the vacations there were astonishingly cheap. They had both loved the idea of ski-ing in the high Andes, but in the end the logistics defeated them. Getting there involved changing planes twice and making a four hour journey by coach to get to the resort. They'd gone to Calgary instead.

Now, it seemed, he was going to get to know the country a whole lot better.

He tapped absently at the file. Buck would be furious. Larabee --Larabee would understand. He thought of the rest of his team. If he didn't make it back they would never know what had happened to him. They would think that Madison had killed him. Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that in all probability they already thought him dead. The people who had abducted him weren't interested in how his family felt.

He smiled sadly. He'd just wanted to take guns away from stupid kids. Well, this was his big chance. He just wished that he could take the guys with him. Ezra's cunning, Vin's steadiness; Josiah's strength, Nathan's lightning reflexes and gentle hands. And the solid stability of Buck and Chris at his back, assuring him that they would bring him home again, protect him, and trust him to do the same for them.

He swallowed back the lump in his throat. He was too old at twenty-three to bawl over the lack of friends. He wrenched his eyes away from the folder and walked to the window, leaning his head against the cool glass.

"Buck," he whispered softly, and let the word settle, a puff of breath misted on the window. This was going to be hard. But she was right. Unless there really was a MacGyver, he was probably the best man for the job. He smirked faintly. Those hack jobs Mellors had threatened him with. Not all of them had been his, but some of them... and they'd been the ones from when he was starting, only twelve and thirteen years old. The later ones had never been seen except by the people who needed to know.

The smirk widened. There was a reason he'd sold Securenet as fast as possible. There were reasons why Chris Larabee trusted him to find anything. And there were reasons why the computer techs in federal government hated him with a vengeance. He smirked briefly, thinking of the sheer outrage of some of those guys after his once-a-year 'old time's sake' cracking expedition. They weren't even good enough to pin it anywhere near him, never mind on him, even if some of them were morally certain that the silly messages and pictures were his doing. And that was just the stuff they thought he might have done.

He would be the first to admit that beyond computers and guns he had few specialist skills. The guys were trying to teach him as much and as fast as they could, but between his comparative youth, and the relative ease of his life so far he had very little hard experience on his own. He frowned. Maybe Atiyah was counting on that. A bit of an ego-boost to tilt him in favor of signing up. They didn't ask the team, they asked him.

But that didn't change the fact that all false modesty aside, he was the man who had written the Tiengonese government's security protocols. And these days, after he upgraded it for them as a favor from the US Government three years ago, to a fluctuating one-twenty-eight bit system, he was probably the only one qualified to break it. It didn't hurt that he really was the very best at a certain thing. The kind of hacker that other hackers, real hackers, not the know-nothing script-kiddies, shook their heads over as too reckless, too clever, too dangerous. Which when you thought about it, and he did, was fucking hilarious.

So. A nuclear weapons dump. A man with delusions of grandeur and a taste for American toys, initially funded by US tax dollars. A closed network using his Securenet software. And a lot of political embarrassment.

Someone had gone over the site as carefully as satellite technology and barbed wire and armed guards at every ten paces would allow, and he was pretty sure it would work. Chris and Buck would have thrown fits, particularly at the idea of him being involved, but Chris's voice told him to look for the danger points. Buck's told him to keep his head down. He grinned. Of course, Buck's voice always did tell him to keep his head down. Some things never changed.

Ezra would be looking for the holes. The assumptions and omissions that could mean the difference between life and death. He stared helplessly at the documents. His life on the line and he had no idea how to pull it off.

"I'd be happier about this if I could have some of the guys along," he said casually, and Sandra opened the door as though she had been waiting for him to speak. Thinking about it, she probably had.

"Not possible," she said tersely.

"Why not?"

"One man we can conceal. Seven? Impossible."

JD nodded thoughtfully, mind racing. "Conceal or control?" He smirked at the idea of this tight little set up trying to manage the full Seven, and had his answer, for all her outraged bluster. "Forget it."

"Forget...?"

"Forget I asked. I still want someone off my team with me as backup. I'd hate to suddenly become expendable. I figure, the right incentive, and a little backup might do wonders."

"Incentive?" Atiyah looked up eagerly. "You're going to take the assignment?"

JD shrugged. "I'm thinking about it. I want a computer and a phone. Right now."

"That's not possible."

"Then neither is this." He slapped the folder dismissively. "You either trust me or you don't."

Atiyah was shaking her head. "You don't understand."

"Explain to me."

"Right now, your cover is perfect. We can re-insert you with some sort of explanation, perhaps an underworld turf war with you as a kidnapped trophy, or if things go bad no one need ever know more than that you vanished during an undercover operation."

"Fuck that," he said, enunciating each consonant clearly and precisely. "Buck needs to know. Chris and Vin, Ez, Josiah, they would all understand."

"So you say. But my sources say Standish was moved sideways after questions about his reliability. Sanchez caught religion. Larabee is a loaded cannon. Tanner was too much of an individualist. Wilmington's flighty. You trust them, but you're asking the United States Government to trust them. It's simpler to just not tell them anything. We can't tell them, or involve them. At all."

JD sighed. "If I die, will you let Wilmington know?"

"I can't promise that."

JD shook his head. "My fiancée. She--"

"We'll make sure they know for certain. The circumstances may not be --"

JD grinned half-heartedly. "Training accident in Florida."

To his surprise Atiyah grinned at him. "Oh, I think we can manage to be a little more original than that."

He looked at the folder, and then at the plain signet ring on the third finger of his left hand that Casey had given to him at the same time he had given her a tiny square cut sapphire. He smiled at the thought of the tattoo on his right hip, a number seven wound through a smoking gun. Even without them, he'd be with them.

"Okay then." He stood and put the folders down. "I'll do it."

Sandra nodded calmly. "In that case, I'll be back shortly. I have someone who's been waiting to meet you."

...And waking...

Steve woke and lay still. It was dark outside still; the curtains showed only a bare glimmer of light from the street below.

He was starting to hate this damn program they'd given him to crack. It had been three weeks already, and he'd had to start again from scratch about once a week so far. Every time he thought he was getting somewhere and pulled on a promising looking thread the whole thing would unravel right enough -- into another trap. No wonder he was having nightmares about it. Being a hacker with a high security government cloak and dagger job would be much easier than picking his way through the madman's maze that some lunatic had thought would be a fun way to kill a couple of million US government dollars. He turned over and laughed into his pillow. Maybe he should stop watching films with Sandra Bullock in them last thing at night.

He grabbed the bottle of water he'd left on the bedside cabinet, glancing at the clock as he took several deep draughts. Three in the morning. "Ah, that's better," he mumbled, and snapped down the sports cap.

He snuggled back under the covers and fell asleep in minutes.

Everywhere you go

Steve felt behind the sun visor and pulled out his keys. The car purred quietly into life and he smiled. Whatever else he might say about his taste before he lost his memory, he'd known his cars. The engine purred almost noiselessly as he pulled out of the Foundation's parking garage and waited at the exit for the cars ahead of him to make their turns, left or right, heading home. Automatically he flicked the indicator to left, back to his safe, gray little apartment, and then paused. It was a fine day. He was feeling good -- better than he could ever remember, and he wasn't going to let that thought bring him down, nope, he was going to enjoy it. For once he had nothing to do, nowhere important to go, no obligations or appointments.

Hell with it. He grinned wickedly, swiped the indicator all the way down and indicated right. He'd go exploring. He'd been here three weeks now, and apart from the tidy boxlike house in the suburbs belonging to Kate Anderson and her husband -- who was something in the military apparently, and currently out of the country -- and the route to and from work and Harris's place, he'd seen nothing of Stewartville. As far as he had seen, walking at lunchtimes, there was almost nothing to this place. He wanted to know what Stewartville had going for it to bring the Foundation here.

He turned right and just drove. The main street petered out into a dozen side roads and an off ramp to the highway up to the next big town. He peered at the sign. Truman was more than a hundred miles away, and was the only town listed going north. He grinned. It wasn't like he had anywhere else to be.

Maybe Truman had better coffee shops.

He pulled onto the wide, open highway and grinned. Windows down, and he turned the radio to the rowdiest rock station he could find, turning the volume all the way up, and whooping as he passed a sign saying 'Thank You For Visiting Stewartville -- Come Again Soon!'. He shivered.

He glanced over his shoulder at the town diminishing into the distance behind him. Maybe he shouldn't have left.

He shifted uneasily in his seat, and cold fear welled up from his stomach. Suddenly he was desperate to stop, turn around, go back to the safety of his tiny apartment, get out of the car, had to stop, had to get out -- he slammed on the brakes coming to an screeching halt leaving black streaks on the pavement. Maybe the acrid smell of burning rubber was what caused the nausea.

"Oh shit..." He struggled with his seat belt, his fingers stuttering and stumbling over the catch, then he flung himself out of the car, jerking at the door handle frantically. He fell on his hands and knees, gasping for breath. Tremors racked him and then his stomach clenched and he was helplessly throwing up, retching miserably as every meal he'd had for the last century burned its way up his gullet. "Oh God..." he moaned, and retched again.

When he could think again he found himself still on all fours, staring at the pool of vomit. He was gasping for air as though he'd run a marathon, and the stench swirling around him, tugging at the back of his throat, pulled at his unsettled stomach and he moaned and shoved himself away from the mess, away from the car, shuddering. His breaths were raw and loud in his ears, his heartbeat drumming madly.

He drew in a slow, shaky breath, trying to steady himself and dropped back onto his heels. . His hands were trembling, and he fisted them, but the shivers were everywhere. He swallowed repeatedly, trying to quell his rising nausea, and then spat, then spat again, desperately trying to get the taste out of his mouth. The breeze blew coldly over his sweating face. He could feel his shirt matted to his back, wet with sweat, as though he'd worked out for hours.

He closed his eyes and just breathed.

Slowly. Steadily.

In, two, three, four...

Out, two, three, four...

There was no traffic.

No one to stop and help him.

He lifted his head and looked around. The road was long and empty in every direction. So empty. He wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand, pressing it firmly against his mouth when his stomach roiled unpleasantly.

"Oh God," he said hoarsely. He could still feel his heartbeat pounding in his ears, and tried to control his ragged breathing.

In through his nose, three and four. Out through his mouth, and three and four.

Okay. It's okay. Nothing wrong. Just a panic attack. Nothing’s wrong, you know what to do, balance, breathe, Pat said you might keep getting them for a while... fear of the unknown, fear of new things... just deep breaths. Work through it. He closed his eyes, tried to calm his pounding heartbeat.

Find a place you feel safe, mentally, physically, whatever works for you...

But there was nothing left when he tried to find a mental safe place, just the fog and a blur of male voices. Was he remembering his father? They hadn't known anything about him. He'd never told them anything, they said, and so he was left with a void, and the sound of men talking and laughing distantly echoing.

Fire, fire on the mountain...

He let the childish rhyme settle as a mantra, his breathing steadying, slowing. The gradual calm loosened his shoulders, eased his heartbeat so it was not drumming in his ears.

"Geeze," he whispered, and dragged himself to his feet using the car door for leverage. He shut his eyes briefly. "Geeze." He slowly sank into the driver's seat, and slammed the door. His hands were still shaking as he turned the ignition, and pulled out in a lazy semi circle that put him on the road heading back into Stewartville.

All he could think about was his bed, how clean and crisp the linens were, how soft and welcoming the comforter. He wanted to go home and sleep. Sleep for a week.

He drew a deep breath and shuddered as it rasped over his sore throat. "It's not the rush, it's the crash that kills ya," he whispered to himself, and goosebumps raced over his skin. He yawned and could hardly keep his eyes open.

It was only twenty minutes before he was safely curled up in his bed, and sleeping.

Dinner and a dance

Steve rubbed at his eyes wearily. Whoever had put this together was damn good. Even with his own instincts, and every piece of software they would give him, he couldn't break the damn encryption.

There was something very weird going on.

He'd been working on it for the best part of two months now, and while he'd had some success peeling back layers, every time he seemed to get somewhere -- particularly if data indicated actual names or addresses, that data would be removed as soon as he reported it. And he couldn't get away with not reporting. He winced at the memory of the dressing down he'd gotten from the Director of the Foundation over not reporting a new lead.

Someone had to have been reading through his private files out of hours to have even known about it. Mellors hadn't apologized. When accused he simply told Steve it was more important than one man's ego; made him feel about two inches tall, and selfish and prideful for hoarding the information to himself, right up until he realized he couldn't go further forward without that data. But they wouldn't budge on letting him have it back, and it had somehow been excised -- the old CD replaced by a newer, unscratched one.

At that point, he'd resorted to paper and pen, keeping cryptic little notes on data quantities, file dates, anything that would confirm that he wasn't going crazy, that the amnesia wasn't starting to affect his ability to think and remember new things.

Nothing made sense.

He knew this damn thing like the back of his hand -- after two months he should -- but he couldn't help feeling there was more to it than that. The whole layout seemed extremely familiar to him, but every time he tried to go down certain paths, he was blocked -- both by the code, and by the people overseeing his work. It was almost as if they wanted him to fail, or had a specific methodology in mind for how this particular piece of security software had to be broken. Any time he tried to ask why, he got blank looks and bland reassurances.

He wished he could talk to someone about it, but the one time he'd talked to Harris he'd been fobbed off with some sort of glib answer about working too hard. The next thing he knew he was given the rest of the day off and 'urged' to visit Dr. Buchanan. He didn't want to go see Pat. She was a nice lady, a good therapist -- but he just didn't like her, and couldn't figure out why the hell not.

So, he didn't ask for help, didn't mention his weird sense of déjà vu, or that paranoid sensation of being watched the whole time. Instead, he'd started developing his own private theory about what was going on. He sometimes thought he really was going crazy when he thought about it in daylight, in the middle of a big office full of people clattering on keyboards, or playing a pickup game at the basketball court a block away from his apartment.

It didn't seem so crazy at midnight, after another failed attempt to get out of the town perimeters.

Or after the cops cruised by him every night he went for a run. He'd varied his route, varied the time he went out, and yet, there was always at least one car that drifted past him. Every day for sixty days had gotten way, way past coincidence. Once, when he'd jogged almost to the town limits they'd stopped and offered him a lift home. It was late to be out. No, sir, no curfew, just a friendly offer.

He shivered. For April in Oregon it was pretty warm.

He sighed and carefully opened a new area of the system code, reading through it with precision and slow patience. He stopped, his eyes widening despite his best efforts. He carefully relaxed every tensed muscle and plastered a smile on his face for when Harris called over to him.

"All okay, Steve?"

"Yeah, just a twinge in my back."

"You take it easy. Don't want you passing out on us," Harris said gently, leaning over to frown at him.

Steve smiled back. "You worry too much. I don't need a nanny," he teased, and Harris laughed.

"Okay, okay. I'm just looking out for you."

"I know." He met Harris's eyes with sincere gratitude. Harris shifted uncomfortably, and looked away, embarrassed.

"Well, can't have you slacking off, not the Foundation's blue-eyed boy, can I?"

Steve chuckled and turned back to his computer, the smile fading as he bent his concentration to the screen full of raw alphanumeric data. He highlighted a three page section, and printed it off, then pulled out an array of highlighters. There was something in here. Something that nagged at him.

"Found something?"

"Maybe." He didn't look up. "Come back in three days and I'll let you know. Right now, it's just a hunch."

"What kind of hunch?" Harris perched himself on the edge of Steve's desk. Steve looked up, irritated.

"I don't know. That's why I'm coloring in the lines."

"And there was me thinking you were bored."

"Well, that too," he let Harris coax him out of his irritation. "That too."

"Fair enough." Harris clapped him on the back and headed back to his desk.

He shut his eyes briefly, then picked up the yellow highlighter again. There was a cyclic pattern in this. He could feel it, even if he couldn't see it -- yet. And it itched at him the way the few shards of memory that he had left itched, the way living like this -- this place, this job -- itched.

Being this person.

Six hours later he surfaced again with someone jostling his shoulder.

"Huh?"

"Steve?"

"What now, Lucas?" he snapped irritably, then glanced at the clock.

"Yeah," Harris said significantly at Steve's dropped jaw. "Look, kid, you've gotta eat. Put this down and I'll treat you." He tugged at Steve's shoulder again, but Steve shook his head.

"I'm right on the brink of breaking this, Harris. I can feel it."

"And you're going to work yourself back into the ground. Come on. It's only been a couple of months since you got the all clear -- hell, it’s only been a couple of months you’ve been back on the job. Go easy on yourself. It'll all still be here in the morning."

Steve hesitated. Something was screaming at him to not leave his work at this stage, but that simply didn't make sense. Harris Lucas was his friend, a good friend. And no one else was going to be interested in his work before he finished and did the write up on the system he'd been analyzing. Except -- someone had been reading his work out of hours...

"Come on, kid," Harris wheedled, and Steve smiled reluctantly at him.

"You know, you're right." He swept his work into a single pile and slid it into a lockable drawer, saved the open files on his screen, and stood, key in hand. "I'm starving." He picked up his coat and absently patted his pocket for his wallet and keys. "Your treat, you said?"

"We aren't going to Marciano's, kid, so don't even ask. Stop looking at me like that. Steve--"

"Harris--" he said, laughing along with the innocent face he was pulling. He waited as Harris swiped his pass to call one of the elevators, and then nudged him with his shoulder. "Go on. Just think -- you, me, a candlelit dinner..."

"If I thought for one moment you were serious," Harris shook his head at him, "But I know you. All you're interested in is their sixteen ounce steak. You're a bad, bad person, Harper."

"You say that like it's a bad thing," Steve grinned, and ducked out of the way when Harris swiped at his head.

"Playing on a poor, lonely man's sensibilities," he clutched a hand to his heart as they stepped into the elevator, and Steve punched the button for the parking garage. "Heart breaker."

"Home wrecker."

"Dork."

"Fag."

"Gimp."

"Flunky."

"Oh, now that's harsh," Harris laughed. "Get in the damn car, before I change my mind and take you to the drive thru'."

"Yes!" Steve bounced into the passenger seat of Harris's Subaru, and grinned smugly.

"Buckle up."

"Funny thing," Steve pulled the belt across his body and fastened it. "You'd think I'd have nightmares about driving, and cars, but half the time I forget to even do my belt up."

Harris looked grimly out of the windshield. "That's okay. I have nightmares enough for the two of us." His hands were white knuckled on the steering wheel, and Steve touched his forearm lightly, hesitantly.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, kid. It was my fault." Harris swallowed hard and closed his eyes. "It was my fault you were anywhere near where it happened."

"You can't blame yourself. You said it, it was an accident. Unless you deliberately ran into me when I was crossing that road it was nobody's fault but that guy who ran the lights."

Harris nodded. "You're right. Sorry." But something in his eyes made him think that Harris hadn't been kidding about the nightmares.

"Maybe you should come along and meet my therapist," he offered, half seriously.

"And take her away from you?"

"You're queer, you wouldn't want her."

Harris grinned, "Yeah, you're right. Forgot for a minute there."

Steve shook his head. "You're weird."

"And you're short, but at least I can act normal."

"Yeah, right. You, 'normal'. You know, I think I'll have the twenty ounce steak. Or maybe the thirty-two."

"I think I'm going to drive there before you start deciding you want truffles and champagne with your six ounce steak."

"Shut up and drive."

Harris laughed, and pulled out, heading for Marciano's.

Funny how he never did quite get around to talking through his suspicions to Harris.

Grey dawn breaking

He slept badly that night. At one point he snapped upright in bed, his own voice echoing in his head, torn from dreams of a plain white room with a dark wooden table, papers scattered across it, asking as if in a dream 'If I die, will you let Wilmington know?', and a woman replying with words that he could not remember. There was a girl's face in his mind's eye, pixie like, with dark reddish brown hair that hung to her hips in rolling waves. She didn't speak, just clinging to him in an embrace that made him feel light and happy. Then she kissed him on the lips and drifted into the night. As he staggered out of bed he could still see her eyes, imploring him to remember her.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and padded into the kitchen for a glass of water. Stupid dreams. How could she tell him anything if she didn't speak? Maybe he was dreaming about telepaths, he mocked silently. He sighed and settled himself into his deep chair by the window. Pat, his therapist, had told him to write his dreams down so they could discuss them, and this one was a doozy -- even if it was fading rapidly.

He grabbed his dream book and started scribbling. There was the white room, and the papers, and something ominous about the whole thing. That was probably him fretting over the stuff he'd left at work -- all those papers he'd been marking up he should only be surprised he hadn't dreamed of troupes of dancing highlighter pens. He grinned, and tried to put the image out of his head. 'If I die will you let Wilmington know?’ Who was Wilmington? He frowned, then shrugged and left it out.

One of those weird brain farts Pat had talked about -- incorporating little unnoticed details into dreams to add reality to the whole thing, his brain padding out the bizarre twists of his unconscious mind. He'd probably seen the name on one of the wait staff's badges last night, and incorporated it into the nightmare. He shrugged and moved on. The girl had been pretty. He leaned back and smiled. Very pretty. Probably meant he'd really needed to get himself a girlfriend. Although... he frowned as he remembered something he hadn't noticed during the dream. She'd been wearing a ring -- an engagement ring, white gold with a small square cut sapphire, the equivalent of three entire months’ salary blown on his Casey.

Goosebumps prickled his skin. That hadn't been in the dream.

Harris hadn't told him about a girlfriend. A fiancée. He had no doubt, none whatsoever that she was his fiancée. The rock solid certainty of it seemed to be a stable center to a fragmenting world.

Where had she gone? Why wasn't she around any more? Had she decided she couldn't take the uncertainty when he'd been in that coma? Maybe Harris was trying to avoid hurting him. Maybe there had been a bad break up or --

Casey. He remembered now. His girl's name was Casey, and they were going to get married. He'd proposed to her somewhere on a mountain, he didn't know where, but he remembered the clear skies, and the feel of the blanket under his knees, and the way her face lit up when he dropped to one knee and offered her his heart, his ring, his whole life. There'd been a, a, he frowned, trying to hold onto the memory, but the harder he tried the faster it retreated. He threw the book across the room.

"Dammit!"

It landed, pages bent, against the wall, and he stared at it, unseeing. There weren't any mountains here. They'd've have to have gone over to the Cascades. Or the Rockies. Yeah, that felt right. High up in the Rockies, near Chris's place. Colorado.

He gasped. Another name. Who was Chris? Was he 'Wilmington'? It felt like he was right on the edge of putting it together, and he closed his eyes, desperately trying to relax, let it happen.

Maybe 'Wilmington', maybe that whole dream wasn't just a dream. Maybe his memory was finally coming back.

Why hadn't Harris told him about his fiancée? Harris, his good friend.

His face darkened as his brain kept churning. His good friend.

His only friend.

His self-appointed, self-announced friend.

What if Casey wasn't the only thing Harris had kept from him?

May 18 Colorado: Call out my name

The man in the black and white photograph was looking thoughtfully up at Josiah, his eyes hooded as though looking into strong sunlight. His dog tags and the heavy cloth of military uniform were clearly visible despite the lack of color. He watched anxiously as Bogusz Latham peered closely through a magnifying lens at the picture. The man sat back with a sigh.

"Where'd you get this?"

Josiah shrugged and produced the envelope in its plastic evidence bag.

"Hm." Bo's eyebrows lifted as he looked shrewdly at Sanchez. He turned the clear plastic bag over. "No return address. Postmark smudged, but I might be able to get that cleaned up for you. Mike!" A head bobbed up over the cubicle wall.

"Yeah, Bo?"

"Get me a clean up on the post mark on this would you. Did you run it for prints?" he asked Josiah who shook his head. "Mike, get the mark and get Lucy to pull any prints on it. Run 'em through the national database."

Mike Gagliardi's head popped up from behind another cubicle wall and eyed the picture. "Military?"

"Everything, Mike. Dead and alive," he added. He looked up at Sanchez. "We'll get back to you when we can."

"You'll get back to me today." It wasn't a question. Bo Latham had been friends with the kid. Latham nodded grimly.

"Today," he agreed. He looked at the picture again, tracing the hairline through the plastic bag covering it. "I'll walk it up now." He hesitated then spoke, "Sanchez, I'm not giving you this as definite - but this looks like the real thing. The photo isn't manipulated. I'll get the tags blown up, run 'em. See if they are genuine. I'll get the numbers and run them, see what we've got." He looked serious, and he lowered his voice, "I recognize something here, Josiah. Don't say anything to anyone. I'll get back to you asap. It might be tomorrow."

Josiah nodded. "Thank you." And left.

He waited quietly in the elevator, hands folded together, wondering what he was going to do with this. Whether it was true or not, he would eventually have to tell the others. The tags might be their best break yet.

JD Dunne had never been in the military.

Bo Latham's preliminary assessment was that it was genuine. Bo had been doing this for thirty years. He'd seen everything, and Josiah hadn't yet seen him wrong when he called a picture by eye before full analysis. Ergo, JD Dunne had been in the military. Or some close facsimile thereof.

The question was: when? And how?

"And is he still alive...?" he whispered softly.

May 18: After the wind an earthquake

Steve woke with the alarm, and listened to the relentlessly upbeat DJ talking about the weather. Rain, rain and more rain, but that's good for the crops, and hey, no need to wash your car.

Woo.

He rubbed at his eyes and sighed. No dreams last night. It was as though his mind had decided to give him the night off. Wow. Thanks, he thought sarcastically. Please, give me more flashbacks in front of Lucas. It's so easy keeping the front up already.

Yesterday he had felt like kicking himself, or screaming. Now, he needed damage control. Harris didn't know that he was getting more and more memories back. Must not know.

Two names... Casey, the girl Harris tried to tell him didn't exist, but he knew she was real, could feel her, smell her, taste her. 'Chris', and a third, 'Buck', if that even was a name, and not just some random word thrown out by his whirling subconscious. And there was that other name, from the time he'd remembered Casey. Williams? Williamsburg? Something long.

Wilmington. That was it! He mouthed the word, delighted as it surfaced from the dark depths of his faulty memory, and then paused, frozen. Another image formed, a tall, laughing man, with deep blue eyes and black hair, a mustache doing nothing to conceal the merry slant of the man's lips, and he smiled in response. Was this Buck? Buck Wilmington?

How hard could it be to find a man with that unique a name?

He struggled to add information, dragging out anything at all. Casey engaged, a student? Only a guess -- no last name yet. Chris, ditto, but somewhere in the Colorado Rockies, not that that narrowed it down much. Buck. And Wilmington. Buck Wilmington? Yes. Buck Wilmington. . Nothing more than instinct but that fitted together. He didn't have his own name, but he was getting more every day. He just had to have faith.

It was going to be harder than ever to pretend to be as normal as possible. He smiled slowly and pushed back the blankets. Fine. They wanted games. He could play games.

He might not know who he was, but he had a pretty good idea of why he was where he was. He even was pretty sure he knew how. The fragments would come together. He was certain of that much. In the meantime, he had some work to do.

And after the earthquake, fire

He walked back into the apartment, yawning, and headed straight for the medicine cabinet. His head hurt. He rolled his shoulders then stretched out his arms, trying to loosen tight back muscles. "Leaning over desks and stupid computers ain't good for you," he said firmly, and swallowed down the Tylenol. He wandered back to the kitchen, rummaging through fridge, cupboards and freezer before giving up and deciding on takeout.

He grabbed the phone and started dialing -- then stopped, staring at the handset. That was no local number. He hung up and re-dialed, ordered pizza for collection, and smiled inanely into space. Pizza was good.

Apparently he was remembering all sorts of things. He scribbled down what he remembered of the number, and shook his head. He'd need that. If it was the nearest place to deliver then he'd be able to backtrack to Buck.

He dropped back down onto the couch, ands started channel surfing. No point playing games until the pizza was here. He'd only get pissed off when they rang the bell and he had to pause. He couldn't get interested in anything, and left it on MTV, hoping that dinner would show up quickly. He was half asleep, slouched deep into the couch when he actually saw what he'd been looking at on the bookcase for the lat five minutes. This morning there had been two photo albums full of people he didn't recognize.

This evening there were three on the pile.

He froze, controlling his breathing, not so much as twitching. It was only a little album. The sort that took two pictures in each slot, back to back, no room for notes on who, or when, or why. It wasn't on the top of the pile. It was leaning against it, as though it had fallen off, carelessly placed. He wondered how long it had been there. Surely he would have noticed it this morning? Or yesterday evening?

He was trying to decide how to go and pick it up casually when the door buzzed and he jumped. For a second he was frozen in horror that they knew, and had come to take it -- or him -- away. He somehow pressed the intercom answer button and croaked, "Yes?" thorough stiff lips.

"Pizza?"

Oh thank God. He couldn't speak for a second, and then amazed himself by calmly hitting the entry button and saying, "Come on up. Second floor, it's the apartment across from the elevator. "

A knock on the door a minute later had him squaring his shoulders. It could just be the pizza guy. Or it could be someone else. So he had a twenty in one hand, and one of his free weights in the other, concealed behind the door.

A kid, no more than sixteen was holding a box and a bottle of soda. "Large pepperoni, extra onion and jalapenos; bottle of Sprite."

Steve smiled, and handed the kid the twenty and grabbed the box one handed and put it on the hall table, took the soda and waved off the change, too relieved to be bothered that he'd tipped the kid about ten dollars.

He tucked the bottle under one arm, and walked back to the living room, detouring slightly to pick up the fallen photo album. He put it back on top of the pile, then grabbed it again, as though he'd just changed his mind and decided to have a flick through it. The pizza came with napkins, he was too hungry to wait, and took a slice, took a bite, and opened the album.

The pizza got cold waiting for the next bite.

He flicked slowly through the new photo albums, as though he wished he knew the people in it, trying to keep his face under control, and his breathing steady. He did know the people in it.

The first one was the best -- or the worst, depending on how you looked at it. There were seven of them in what looked like some attempt at team colors. He himself was between a guy with overly long brown hair, and a grizzled older man, but all of them were grinning like loons, and were all absolutely filthy. He wondered what they'd been doing to get so battered, then spotted the soccer ball clutched in one of the men's hands. He grinned involuntarily, momentarily feeling the chill of the fall wind and the itch of drying mud on his shins, and turned the page.

The second picture was him and a tall, dark-haired guy, apparently in the middle of some sort of fight. The bigger man had Steve in a headlock, but the agonized expression on the bigger guy's face, and the smirk on Steve's own face strongly suggested that the picture did not show the final winner. "Buck?" he whispered, "Are you -- who are you?"

The next one was a girl, happy, in cropped t-shirt and baggy knee length shorts, her hair glinting red in the sunlight. He smiled, pulling the picture from its slip to look more closely.

So pretty. He swallowed. She was shading her eyes, squinting a little into the sun, and smiling straight into the camera like she adored the photographer. He'd taken that picture. He knew that picture, that pose, that moment... He stroked her cheek lightly, and closed his lips tightly on the name he wanted to say. He slid it halfway in before the name written on the slipcase, showing up clearly against the white back of the next picture, registered. He stared at the hand written note, his jaw hanging open.

#Casey Wells#

I knew that, he thought before he realized it. Casey...

He absently pushed the picture all the way back in, still staring, his breath coming short. A sudden thought struck him and he flipped back to the first picture. Oh my God, he thought, too shocked to say anything, unable to even think any more than, oh my God.

He couldn't see the names at first, he had to peer to read them, the black ink barely showed against the dark background. Someone had scribbled seven names on the plastic slip here too. He traced a wondering finger over each: Nathan Jackson, Ezra Standish, Buck Wilmington (ha! He'd known it was right!), Chris Larabee (he tried that one for size and nodded), Vin Tanner, JD Dunne, Josiah Sanchez. He didn't need them; it felt as though he'd known these names already, he just had to be reminded.

JD Dunne. His name was JD Dunne. JD. Dunne. He turned the name round and round, feeling unsettled and light, dizzy, as though he'd stood too quickly or had unexpectedly walked from a dark room into blazing light.

These were his brothers. The absolute certainty of it was beyond question. This was what he had remembered. He looked at the seven of them, at the unmistakable camaraderie binding them, and the world shifted sideways. No wonder Pat had been so keen on making sure he thought the brother idea was pure fantasy.

He flipped through the rest of the pictures. He didn't need to see them to know who was in them, but nonetheless, he looked through them breathlessly, smiling without realizing it.

His room. A picture of his room in Buck's condo! Yes, yes, Buck owned a condo, and he rented a room from him. It was a mess -- stuff everywhere. He smiled. Him and Vin playing ice hockey -- at least, according to the writing it was them; it was kind of hard to tell them amongst the rest of the people on the ice. Him and Casey riding. Him and Chris looking at each other with nearly identical dubious expressions on their faces -- he grinned abruptly as the memory came back pat upon its cue. Buck had told them they had a lot in common, and then taken a snapshot of the expression on their faces, maybe six weeks after he'd moved into Buck's place. He could almost hear Buck's howls of laughter as he gloated over the success of his set up, and ever after he used to produce the photograph to wind them up, despite Chris and JD both waging a campaign to acquire and destroy the negative.

And then pictures of the others without him. Ezra looking in horror at Nathan. JD couldn't help it, he giggled, God, that was when Nathan had proposed that Ezra needed an enema to sort out his wrong-headed ideas about healthy eating. Nate had managed to keep a straight face for nearly ten minutes of Ezra's urgent demurs and refusals and explanations as to why this was an unacceptable treatment. Another Buck set up, with the connivance of Nathan who had kept up the charade until they were all half afraid he really meant it.

Vin taking a picture of some wild creature, himself barely tame, lying half hidden in the long grass, wearing just shorts in the August sunshine, the long lens of a Nikon SLR poking out over the riverbank. Oh... he remembered this too. He smirked. Josiah had taken this one. Told Vin there was some rare bird or fish or something out here, and let him lie there for two hours before 'remembering' that it was in some other river... He wondered if the next picture was there, and flipped over and let out a crack of laughter. The next one he'd taken himself from his perch in a tree as Vin raced after Josiah, brandishing the dead fish Josiah had gently thrown onto his bare back.

He muffled his laughter with a hand, but couldn't stop smiling as he looked through them all. He didn't need the names, or places or dates. He remembered how it felt: family; home.

His smile dropped like it had never been.

They'd either stolen a shedload of stuff from the apartment, or Buck had thrown it all out, or these were some fine copies. How the hell did these end up here?

And what was he going to do, now he knew?

May 20: Running Man

JD moaned and struggled out of a heavy, unrestful sleep as the alarm bleeped louder and louder. The room was still dark, and he stared at the ceiling trying to reconcile what he knew, with what he felt.

He'd sat not eating pizza and not watching a film well into the early hours of the morning, the TV on as a thin cover for his fascination with the album by his side. He knew he was Steve Harper. It felt like tissue papered over a deeper knowledge. He was JD Dunne. He didn't belong here.

For months he'd known that he didn't belong, that the world was wrong, and everyone, everything had conspired to tell him otherwise. For the first time since he could remember waking in hospital, he felt like he was someone he recognized. That he finally fit in his own skin, even though he knew no more than a bunch of names, and a series of memories of places and events. If he reached too hard they still slipped away. If he let himself relax though, there they were, floating up to the surface like poorly hidden dead bodies in a lake.

So, who the hell was JD Dunne? And why did he think he was Steve Harper? He'd had names before, names and dreams and hopes that had been battered almost out of existence by people like Pat Buchanan. Now, he had something concrete to look for, if he could only get to a computer that wasn't watched or blocked. Looking anything up at work was out. And if the plot to hide him and keep him in Stewartville was as pervasive as he was coming to believe, then the public computers in the local library and internet café were out too.

He had to leave. That was becoming clearer by the second. He rolled over, buried his face in his pillows and controlled his breathing, slowing it until hopefully he seemed asleep again.

Under the covers he stared at his hands. In his dream he had held a gun in one, the other had been broken. There was no sign of the breaks in either hand. Maybe it had just been a dream. No. The scene felt real. And he hadn't forgotten as he woke, instead he remembered more and more clearly. He had been undercover trying to bring down Mad-- what was the name-- Madison? Madison. A weapons dealer. He'd been in the ATF, working undercover, and there were others--

A short, tubby blond haired figure came to his mind's eye and he caught his breath. That was Madison. He hadn't been in the album, but the memories came flooding in. Going undercover

He bit his lip. He'd been thinking, in a half hearted way, of getting out of here for months, putting aside cash in hiding places, putting together a collection of stuff, scattered about the apartment, things like maps and notes of motels and camping grounds south of Stewartville -- towards Colorado. Dunne or Harper, he was not a man to be told what to do. Nor a man to blindly accept everything he was told.

So, he needed to go. But where? Colorado was a big place, and just drifting down the Rockies looking for a guy named Chris wasn’t exactly going to be quick. There was that number he'd almost called. The Denver number, a pizza company. Maybe that was a start. Once he was away from Stewartville he could start looking for those names in the album too.

He could use computers. He was pretty sure that if he could get hold of one he would be able to use a gun. All he had to do was get out and start looking for the guys. For Buck, and Chris and Nathan and Vin and Ezra and Josiah. For himself. It was time. All those half planned escapes coalesced and he shifted, turning over in bed. Yes. He could do this. He had to do this.

He turned over again and sighed, then sat up. Whoever was watching would assume he just wanted to sleep in. He had to go to work. A jaw-cracking yawn tried to break through, and he sternly repressed it. He was not tired. They needed to believe that he was getting up just like usual. He stumbled towards the bathroom. They also needed to believe...

He allowed the next yawn to break through, and mumbled through it, "I just wish I could remember the damn dreams when I'm awake." He knew nothing. They had to believe that he knew nothing. He showered and pushed away the other memories, the ones that he'd hoped were only nightmares, and he now was coming to believe were reality.

Dreams of gun battles, and jungles. Dreams of white rooms, and white-coated men and women holding needles that burned and drove him into unwanted sleep. He shivered. The next part of his routine could follow now.

He toweled off briskly then headed back to his bedroom where he dressed warmly, layering clothes like it was December.

Most of the pockets in the clothing he was putting on had money in them. A couple of hundred dollars in his socks, handfuls of uncounted tens and twenties in his jeans pockets -- all of his jeans pockets -- a thousand in fifties split between his shoes. He slipped his sneakers on, and hid a smirk in his knee as he bent to tie the laces. Cash was the only thing he dared take. He would have to replace the clothes as soon as possible.

Failing a gun he'd need a sharp knife. He stood. If he got up early enough he ran -- he usually managed about five miles every couple of days. The people watching him knew this. He'd done it for the last three months. Maybe, just maybe, today was the day to keep on going and not look back.

Maybe that was what they were expecting. He bit his lip, thinking hard. No. He'd go to work. He had a feeling that he wanted to finish the job he'd started -- break that code.

He had a feeling it was going to be a lot easier today than it had been yesterday.

He made himself breakfast, slicing an apple up -- and secreting the knife in a sleeve. He could shake it into a pocket later. He took one last look around the apartment. So, this was it.

He had no idea where to go, or how he was going to get there, or what he was up against. His eyes lighted on the small mysterious photo album. But he knew why he was going. And he knew someone wanted him to succeed.

He stuffed the album into his jacket pocket. All these secrets. All these lies.

He grinned, a slow reckless expression that oddly made him look older.

Time to bring a little light on the subject. Time to act. And he knew just where to start.

May 21: Josiah and the Crow

Josiah yawned and swung his legs out of bed. A series of stretches led easily into his customary tai chi routine, the long forms taxing him as he held them until his limbs began to tremble. An hour later he slowly warmed down again, then stripped, and headed into the shower.

His mind was clear and he smiled peacefully at the wall as he soaped, shampooed and rinsed away the sweat and sleep. Breakfast was a poached egg on whole-wheat, and a bowl of chai, blending perfectly with his serene mood.

As he left a crow swooped overhead, and he frowned until it dipped below the line of his fence, when a small thud, followed by the purr of a car brought a smile to his face. He stepped out to the road and saw the mangled bundle of feathers tumbled into the gutter.

"Good news, then," he reflected quietly, the rumble of his voice barely audible. He drove into work, the tension that had tightened his muscles for months eased by omens and premonitions. And by a photograph of a familiar face, albeit in a context that froze his stomach.

Soon enough he was in work. Josiah settled into his chair. Today, like yesterday, would be the same: mail, email, flyers... He methodically worked through the envelopes and packages, greeting his co-workers as they walked past to their own desks, even the obnoxious Nicholson received a benign smile that put the man instantly on edge, and contributed further to Josiah's contentment.

Chris was in already. Josiah had stared at his closed door for a long moment before shaking his head. The time would come, but not yet. He needed more.

It was nearly lunchtime before his email pinged at him. His eyes snapped up. Bo Latham had sent him a cryptic one line message.

Confirmed. Conference in ten minutes. Suggest Sb on Hall and same. LMK.
Bo

He rose to his feet, and left immediately.

An hour later he returned, a Starbucks disposable cup of cinnamon apple crisp latte in one hand, and a file in the other. A file that would change everything.

"Chris?" He leaned against the man's door as he knocked, and waited.

"Josiah?"

Josiah stepped inside, and closed the door carefully behind him. "Chris, we may have a problem."

May 21 True Lies

JD strode into the Mellors Foundation purposefully. He had a job to do, and then it was over. All of it. He was JD Dunne, and everything anyone had told him from the second he woke in hospital had been a lie.

"Hey, kid," Harris called to him as he headed for his desk on auto, "you okay?"

JD looked at him searchingly, trying to smile casually. Harris. DCD Agent. False friend. Liar. “Yeah. Fine.” Even to himself his voice sounded hollow.

"What's wrong?" Harris stood and ambled over to him, "Bad night?"

No, actually, it was a good night. A really good night. I remembered everything that they were paying you to make sure I forgot, Agent Harris. How much are they paying you? Is thirty pieces of silver still the going rate? And what does it buy? You loyalty? Your heart? Your soul? Just how far are you going to go to stop me, friend?

"Night terrors or something," he shrugged, "usual stuff. One day my subconscious will come up with something useful."

"You look like shit." Harris said frankly.

JD slanted a smile at him, "Well, now that's damn near impossible." Harris laughed and punched him on the arm as JD hugged the memory of someone else saying it to him close.

"Modest too," he ripped back and JD shrugged.

"I better get my head down," he headed for his cubicle, Harris trailing after him. He used to think that the man liked him. Was a friend, a good friend who had helped him when he had had nothing. Now, every interaction was a move in a game he didn't understand, and couldn't remember all the rules to, where the penalty for a single wrong move was death, and the prize if he made it through the game alive a life he hadn't known had been stolen from him.

He stared at the computer. He was right. He opened up the file that had defeated him for the best part of three months, proud that, from nothing, he had still come so close to cracking it. Still, it was a lot faster when you knew what you were doing. It seemed that everywhere he looked there were cues to new memories. He lifted his hands and typed a brief command, and it locked off access from the rest of the world. Another line and the kernel buried at the center of the virus unfolded without so much as a fanfare.

From: shahn.vitoni @ earthlink.com.

Buck, you bastard, you never send me flowers any more. If this is how you treat a lady then you deserve everything you get.

Email me!

Shahn V.

JD stared at the message embedded in the heart of the bundle. A message that would eventually find its way to Buck Wilmington. His fingers were posed above the keyboard as he thought, very carefully, about what he wanted to say. He couldn't take anything out of that original, garbled message, written by someone he was just now coming to remember, but he could add something, tell them he was alive. Warn them.

Buck, I'm adding this in a hurry. I'm alive, 21 May 2004. I'm gonna run. DCD are going to come after me, probably after you guys too. Watch your backs. I'm coming home. JD

And then he stopped, and deleted it. No. he still didn't remember everything, but he had to trust himself, if no one else. If that cryptic message with its fake headers meant anything at all, if he had put this together as his message of last resort, then he was going to trust himself, and send it unchanged. He hoped it was a code. He hoped it meant something. But all he could do, was trust that this was not going to turn out to be the biggest mistake of his life.

He carefully bundled the message back away where no one would find it, and smiled. He might not remember everything, but he remembered this.

Carefully he started unpicking his computer's memory. It wasn't perfect. Only physically cutting up and burning the hard drive would do that. But in a sense, it didn't matter. After all, they knew. They just didn't know that he knew. They didn't know he had remembered.

"Hey, Steve?" Kate walked up to him, perched on the side of his desk, "You got a problem with your machine there?"

That was fast. A matter of minutes since he locked it down, and someone was over, checking up on him.

"Yeah, just clearing out some old cache files, I'm gonna need every ounce of space I can find to break this monster," he said cheerfully. And it was true, every word of it. She could see over his shoulder, and that was all he was doing.

"Fair enough, just got a bit surprised when you locked yourself off the network. You usually give us a heads up first."

"I figured it wouldn't take more than a few minutes. I think I'm onto something with the last couple of sections, but there's got to be a few last booby traps in this thing," he smiled wryly. "Mr. Antonov really didn't want this thing sliced." He cast a mischievous look at her, "I figure you guys would rather I didn't accidentally wipe out the network."

She slapped him on the shoulder, and laughed, "Fair enough. Thanks, Steve. Gotta admit, I'd hate to have to put this bitch back together from the backups!"

She walked back to her desk, and he kept on clearing memory. And then, when he was sure no one was watching, he did the one thing he'd been so careful not to do all these months. He ran the program. It embedded happily, sinking into the system files and registry almost inextricably. Good. He drew a deep, silent breath. Okay. He looked at the computer for a long moment. Once he did this, there was no going back. He carefully emailed Kate -- back on the network. Emailed Harris -- dinner tonight, game on at the bar...; emailed half a dozen other people.

He watched for a while as the virus quietly harvested their names, and then the names in their address books. And forwarded itself, slowly, steadily, carefully. He glanced at the clock. Nearly lunchtime. He was going to do this. He ignored the flare of memory, a white room, and a woman, and a map, and concentrated.

He shifted and felt the uncomfortable press of money hidden in bandages wrapped around his chest, around his legs. Packed in every pocket he had or could improvise. Cash was the only way he would be able to escape. Cash, hitching, public transport. Nothing that he needed ID for. Nothing that needed a credit card. Nothing that could be traced.

He watched the traffic humming gently. The virus had a time delay on it. It was settling into place in each infected computer before starting its work. When this went, it was going to go big time. At its heart, the whole thing was amazingly simple. It had only one purpose. Send an email. Send an email from an old friend of Buck Wilmington's to his work and home email addresses. And keep sending it. Relentlessly. Multiple redundancy was built in. If one account failed, another and another, and another would be tried until a message got through. He smiled.

This time tomorrow, there'd be a new virus in town. And Buck Wilmington would be looking for him.

By this time tomorrow, phobia or no phobia, he was going to be long gone.

JD tapped with his mouse on send/receive. His inbox chimed, and he smiled as the first remailer almost instantly bounced back a receipt.

One last thing. He logged off and started up one last time. F8. Into the bios. Format. Yes, all partitions. Yes, hard format. He watched as the computer swiftly and efficiently obliterated itself. It wouldn't hold them forever, but it didn't need to. It would hold them at least twenty-four hours and that was more than long enough.

"Guys, I'm heading out for lunch."

By the time they got to his machine, it would already be dead.

By the time they thought to shut down the network, twigging to the spike in traffic, the virus would already have started propagating.

By the time they got to his car and his apartment, he'd be long gone. He smiled at the security guards, and walked down the street, enjoying the sunshine.

By the time they realized, it would be much, much too late.

His route was the same as always, except for one little detail. When he ambled along the main street he turned left into the pedestrian area that led up to the mall and his usual deli bar. While his minders wasted time looking inside for him, he dodged between two trucks and sprinted for the parking lot. A swift survey of the lot showed only three cars, and he ran for the nearest, pulling a metal coat hanger from where it was hidden under his shirt. In less than thirty seconds he was in the car, crouched low, finding the right wires. In memory, a Texan drawl told him to take his time, take a deep breath, he knew the wires, he knew this... The engine purred into life.

His name was JD Dunne, and he was going home.

And he was gone.

TBC...

 I. Remembrance | II. Lost from Sight | III. Some Desperate Glory