Primeval fic: Recovery (2/2)
Dec. 22nd, 2020 09:41 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
faye_dartmouthPart One
Part Two
For all that the conversation and fact-finding foray was an utter and complete failure, the Indian carry out was pretty good, and Stephen had to admit he was starting to like this Abby and Connor duo. Separately, he imagined they might be a little aggravating, but they offered each other a good balance. Of course, it would be easier to imagine working alongside them if he knew what they all did for a living, but Stephen didn’t have the luxury of caring too much about that, lest he drive himself wholly insane.
Short trip, he might imagine. For a guy whose clinical diagnose was amnesia, that was.
The fact that he found he enjoyed their visits was notwithstanding, however. Stephen was still faced with the vexing reality of Nick Cutter. He was going to be released in several days time, and he still had only seen his best friend a handful of times. Pretty soon he was going to be left to his own devices to confront Cutter as he pleased, but that begged a necessary and pressing question.
Did he please?
What did he please?
How could he possibly please anything?
The conversation with Abby and Connor had been clear as mud, but it hadn’t been totally worthless. Between their vague assurances and tepid denials, they had let slip a few implications that Stephen could work through in his fractured mind. Was it a little obsessive to break down every detail of a conversation? Yes, yes it was. But it wasn’t like Stephen had much else to do with his time.
First and foremost, he had clearly gotten involved with some pretty weird stuff over the last several years. Calling it top secret had sounded fantastical when he first woke up. Now, it sounded like a pathetic excuse for a euphemism. Top secret just meant the most impossible, improbable, fantastical versions of reality were increasingly likely to be true.
To point, though he had clearly been attacked by an animal, there was no way it was a simple animal attack. Stephen knew a lot about large predators; he knew that dying by tooth and claw wasn’t pretty. But his scars? The wounds crisscrossing his body?
He wasn’t going to kid himself anymore. This wasn’t an attack. This had been nothing short of a damn feeding frenzy. Why he had been on the menu -- Stephen wasn’t sure -- but he was sure that when all was said and done, no one was going to sheepishly admit that he’d been ravaged by a pack of wild dogs in London.
The question of what had attacked him was certainly mind-boggling, but after his talk with Connor and Abby, he heartily deduced that the nature of his attack probably wasn’t all that important. Sure, the physical scars were going to stalk him the rest of his life, but if this was just that Stephen wasn’t a pretty face anymore, then Cutter wouldn’t have thought twice. He doubted Cutter had ever noticed his pretty face in the first place; he wasn’t likely to start now.
Which meant that the real trauma that had occurred wasn’t physical. Based on the innuendo and deference, this altercation had emotional roots.
Had Stephen made a hard call in the field? Had he defied orders? Had Cutter been responsible for sending him into some sort of fray?
But it was more than that; Stephen was confident of that now. Cutter, being inherently inept with his emotions, would still not be put off his guard to this degree. If he were simply guilty or worried, it wouldn't warrant this extreme style of response and the ongoing distance.
No, if anything, Cutter’s appearance indicated that he was trying to put something behind him. Stephen had assumed it was PTSD or something similar related to the incident, but Abby and Connor had suggested something else entirely while trying not to suggest anything at all.
They had said something had come between them.
A falling out, then.
But why?
Stephen had always followed Cutter’s lead. Cutter had always trusted him implicitly. Nothing had ever come between them. Nothing that Cutter needed to know about, anyway.
Just like that, Stephen stopped. His heart stuttered. His chest stilled. The color drained from his cheeks, and he could feel cold like a bucket of water over his head. Goosebumps fleshed out his arms, and he felt momentarily ill.
Stephen hadn’t always been loyal, after all. Of all the things he’d forgotten, he hated that this was something he could still remember. That his loyalty to Cutter wasn’t as perfectly altruistic as he made it out to be. It had never been Cutter who was working himself over to make up for some wrongdoing. No, that was Stephen’s game -- and Stephen’s game alone.
That was how all this had started, after all. Stephen had gone and slept with another man’s wife and felt so guilty about it that he gave up all his dreams, all his plans and dedicated the rest of his life to making the man whose wife he’d slept with happy.
That was why he understood Cutter even when Cutter didn’t understand himself. That was why he’d pinpointed from the first moment just how unhinged Cutter was right now. This wasn’t about an animal attack. This wasn’t a top secret anything. This wasn’t about state’s secrets.
This was about Stephen’s secrets.
His one, terrible secret. The one he would never live down. Even when he forgot everything else, he’d still remember that. He would always remember that, to the very day he died, his last breath.
And just like that, it came to him, nothing short of a revelation. Like a light switch, all the puzzle pieces falling perfectly into place. Stephen understood now. Stephen understood everything.
Cutter’s pinched features; his flushed face. His strained tone; his inability to make eye contact. The way he kept showing up but barely getting inside the room.
The man wasn’t in a nonfunctional state because coping with seeing Stephen ripped to shreds was hard.
No, the man was in a dysfunctional state because Stephen had ripped his marriage to shreds.
Worse than that, he’d never told him.
Stephen couldn’t remember the last five years, and he’d always liked to think he’d do the right thing in the end. But what was ten years compared to five years? He was never going to tell Cutter willingly. It only made sense that they ended up working for a top secret government program. Even more sense that Stephen had gone and fouled it up. Story of his life, apparently. All these secrets, all of them far too dangerous to be kept.
Had he confessed under pressure? Had someone outed him? A few people had known, of course. Hell, for all he knew, Helen Cutter herself had reappeared from the mystical abyss and pitted the two of them against each other. That would be just like her, wouldn’t it? And she was evidence that the most dangerous creatures didn’t need claws or sharp teeth to tear you down to the bone.
No doubt, it hadn’t been a quiet affair either. The truth had been publically made, which was why no one really wanted to get into it. Why would Connor and Abby want to wade into that mess? How would Jenny explain the aftermath of his adultery so many years after the fact?
To some extent, Stephen knew this was speculation. No one had said anything, but that was the point, in the end. Why else would Cutter be this distant? Why else would Cutter alternate between compassion and anger? Trauma, fear, awkwardness -- all totally understandable when your best mate barely survived a top secret attack. But Cutter would have stayed if that was all it was. He would have answered the questions; he would have dabbled in the truth.
This was the only thing that made sense. The only thing that explained anything.
Cutter had been reluctant to come because he didn’t know how to forgive the man who slept with his life and lied about it for 10 years.
Cutter wasn’t sure he even could forgive Stephen, no matter what pity or loyalty might try to dictate to him.
It seemed impossible, really. Or, at the very least, improbable. But then again, Stephen’s hand had been severed clean off, and no one would tell him how or why. Clearly, whatever mess Stephen had gotten himself into, it wasn’t about probabilities anymore. The truth, whatever it may be, was entirely within the realm of the improbable and, quite likely, the impossible.
So Stephen was left with a few impossible conclusions that were inexplicably probable.
First, something mysterious had ripped Stephen apart.
Second, something far more plain had done just as thorough of a job on Cutter.
Now, Stephen had a team of doctors working on him, putting all the pieces back together again, but it was going to be up to Stephen -- and likely Stephen alone -- if anyone was going to put Nick Cutter back together again.
-o-
The decision was a good one, and it was probably a month in coming. He had spent a month, recovering, healing and figuring things out, and now that it had all come together -- he was just going to have to wait a little longer.
The doctors wanted another week, see. The therapist wanted him to have a little more stamina. The psychiatrist wanted to tweak a few more medications. And as Stephen didn’t remember anything about his current life circumstances, it wasn’t like he was even going to know how to get home. He had no idea if he still lived in the same flat. Did he live in a flat? Where was his employer? Did he have a car? A pass to the underground?
One last week, then, Stephen resigned himself to that inevitability. One last week of hospital bleach and bumming carryout from Abby and Connor. One more week of wishing Cutter would show up. One more week before he’d chuck caution to the wind and limp his way after Cutter.
The irony was rich, naturally. That Stephen was barely put together, still stitching together the disparate pieces of his own life. And here he was, ready to run off and put Cutter back together, piece by meticulous piece. He didn’t need all of himself for that, he decided. He needed just enough to give what he had to Cutter and hope like hell it was enough.
One more week.
-o-
Then, out of nowhere, the night before Stephen was supposed to be released, someone knocked on his door just before the end of visiting hours. Stephen figured it was his nurse, coming to see if he needed anything before the end of his shift, and he was lazily doing a crossword puzzle and listening to his iPod as he called for them to come in.
The door opened, and there, standing in the entrance, was Nick Cutter.
Cutter looked the same as he had every other visit. He looked stiff and unnatural; he looked uncomfortable and miserable. Grief-stricken and abjectly angry, Cutter blinked at him in surprise.
Equally surprised, Stephen blinked back.
He’d spent the better part of a week preparing to confront Nick, to lay it all bare between them, clear the air.
But it had all been on his terms. He’d imagined himself, stalking his way into Cutter’s flat, winded and standing on his own two feet. He pictured himself waiting for Cutter at the university, poised at his desk, arms crossed and waiting.
In his mind, it had been appropriately dramatic, and he’d been ready with the confession on the tip of his tongue.
This time, however, Stephen was flat on his ass, chewing the back of his pen cap, trying to figure out if he knew the lyrics to the Beatles’ number one hit Love, Love Me Do to fill in three across. He was wearing fuzzy socks with gripped bottoms like he’s a toddler, for goodness sakes.
“Hi,” Cutter said.
Stephen swallowed quickly and sat up, hastily putting the newspaper to the side and tossing his chewed up pen on the bed. “Hi,” he replied.
The overture was understated, to say the least. And yet, with this bare minimum greeting, Cutter looked like he’d nearly reached his limit. Looking like a deer in the headlights, it seemed like his best friend was about to bolt again.
Stephen, therefore, was out of options. He couldn’t remember what happened a month ago, but he knew what happened ten years ago. If he let Cutter go, then neither of them would remember the real reasons why they’d gotten to this unfortunate circumstance in the first place.
For a month, everyone had been so afraid to speak the truth. Given the secrets he’d been harboring, it wasn’t like he could blame them. But this past month had given him perspective on truth and meaning. People told lies with the best of intentions, but the dishonesty left everyone paralyzed. The things you wanted to forget were the things you’d always remember, and that was for better and for worse.
Sitting there, in his damn fuzzy socks in a hospital room, Stephen didn’t see the point in pretending. If Cutter was going to leave, at least they would part on common ground this time.
“I don’t know what happened to me to put me in this state, but I know what happened to you,” he blurted, the words coming out so fast that he couldn’t have stopped them even if he were so inclined. “But the thing is, I know what’s happened to you to put you in this state. I know you know the truth, Cutter, and that’s why you can’t stay here long enough to look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Because the truth is hard between us. The truth is that I hurt you in ways that no one should ever hurt another person, and I don’t actually even know why you keep bothering to come here at all.”
Cutter seemed to go still, so still it wasn’t clear he was breathing.
Stephen sighed and threw up his hands. “I suppose it’s guilt,” he continued. “You feel guilty because I’m here and you’re there, but you shouldn’t feel guilty, Nick. I slept with your wife, and we both know it. It was a long time ago, and I was young and stupid and I’m sorry for it, but I still did it. And it doesn’t matter what happened after that -- if you don’t want to be here, then I understand. You don’t have to stay and you don’t have to keep coming back.”
Cutter all but gaped. Breathing stunted, he shook his head. “Stephen, you don’t have to--”
“What, apologize?” he prompted with a scoff. “Nick, I literally slept with your wife and there are a million reasons but if any of them were worth a damn, I would have told you years ago. But I didn’t because I knew it was wrong, and I’m just too much of a coward to face it.”
Flushing red, Cutter looked like he was ready to start vibrating. Anger, maybe. Fear, probably. Too much emotion, too fast. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Sure, I do,” Stephen said, matter of fact. “I have to do it because I should have done it years ago. I have to do it because I can’t remember everything and you can’t forget. I have to do it because you’re my friend, and I’m an idiot.”
“Look,” Cutter said, lifting a hand as if he were trying to reason the conversation back on course. “You nearly died--”
“So?” Stephen asked. He shrugged. “Getting ripped to shreds doesn’t change what I did. I mean, I know I can’t remember much, but I’m pretty sure no matter what story you guys eventually tell me will justify the lie I’ve been trying to forget for ten years.”
Cutter took a staggering breath, almost like he was holding back a sob. “Stephen--”
But Stephen couldn’t heed the call. He couldn’t stop. Because for all the things he’d forgotten since the incident, he was faced now with the things he would never forget. The rush of adrenaline when Helen kissed him. The sound of her voice as she’d told him that her marriage was over. The cold, hard regret when he’d finally met Nick and realized he’d fallen in love with the wrong damn Cutter.
And he remembered, so acutely, the way the truth had gotten stuck in his throat, burned in his eyes. He remembered how drawn he’d been to Nick, even from the start. Call it regret; call it penance. He hadn’t been ready to call it what it was, but he was now.
Back then, he’d been afraid to lose what he didn’t know how to name.
Now, he was afraid to lose what he’d never have if he didn’t finally lay it all on the table.
Some things you didn’t have to remember.
Other things, you would be a fool to forget.
“So you don’t have to pretend, if you don’t want to. You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to come here at all, and I’d totally understand, I would,” Stephen said. “But I just want you to know that I remember what matters. I remember.”
Trembling now, Cutter looked terrified, but he was frozen in place. This was the memory they shared, after all. Even if neither one knew what future it was building toward. “What exactly do you remember?” Cutter finally asked, voice no more than a whisper.
Stephen put his feet down and sat forward. He looked up, right into Nick’s eyes. It hurt to remember, sometimes. How much he missed this. How much he needed this. How much he didn’t know who he’d be without this.
The lie had been selfish, yes, but not for the reasons most people would think.
“I remember thinking how I should have left when Helen disappeared. I should have left school, pursued my studies elsewhere, done anything,” he said. “But there you were -- you had no idea -- and there you were. I was just drawn to you. Some people might call it pity, but it wasn’t that, Cutter. I swear to you, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t pity or sorrow or penance. It was just when I was with you, I forgot her entirely. You were the best kind of amnesia.”
Cutter’s blue eyes were shining, and he didn’t dare blink. Poised by the door, he didn’t dare move. “What are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying,” Stephen said, as simply as he could. “I never told you the truth because the idea of risking my relationship with you over her was impossible to bear. She was never worth it. You were.”
This time, Cutter did blink. A tear snaked down his cheek and he shook his head almost in desperation. “Stephen.”
“It’s an excuse, of course. All I have are excuses,” Stephen said. “I don’t know what happened to us since then, but I know how this started. I know the way I began set us up for failure, and here we are. It’s my fault, no matter how it played out this is my fault. And the things I broke between us aren’t the things you can stitch together or rehab. And I’m sorry for that, Nick. I don’t think you’ll ever know just how sorry I am.”
He’d said it, then. He’d spoken the willfully forgotten truth from all those years ago. He’d brought the memory to fruition and exorcised the ghosts. Helen Cutter might destroy him -- she might destroy both of them -- but Stephen would not allow her to stalk him anymore.
At the doorway, Cutter stood like a tree that had been axed in the middle. He waffled, nearly felled, and it was a visible effort for him to pull his emotions back into check enough to speak at all. Even when he did, the effort looked rending. “You’re wrong,” he said, blinking furiously as more tears poured down his cheeks. “I think I do know.”
Now, it was Stephen’s turn to feel at a loss. He’d started this conversation with a purpose, but now faced with the ending, he found he didn’t know what was going to happen next. He felt startled, and his heart skipped a beat and his palms started to sweat. “What do you mean?”
The truth had a solidifying effect, it seemed. Cutter stepped forward, inward from the door of his own volition, eyes locked on Stephen like there wasn’t anyone else in the entire world. “You’re right. About what happened. I did find out, Stephen. I found out everything,” he explained. “I found out about the affair in the worst way possible, and you humiliated me. You pulled at the fabric of everything I thought was binding us together. You hurt me. You hurt me in ways I didn’t think were even possible.”
He’d brought truth to the table, and he’d laid it bare. He had no right to object when it was thrown right back at him. But the plainness of Cutter’s confession was more cutting than he’d anticipated. Nothing being said was outside of what Stephen had visualized, but for Cutter to say it, to hear it from Nick’s lips--
Well, that would be something he’d never forget, he was quite sure of that as the words physically wrenched through his chest with more ferocity than any tooth or claw ever could. His eyes stung; his cheeks burned. Shame, horror, humiliation, regret, grief.
Cutter, however, didn’t stop this time. Instead of retreating, he took another step forward, closer and closer to Stephen with each heartbeat between them. “Because Helen came back, see. Just materialized, almost out of thin air,” Cutter said. “And it was like she’d never left. Played us both like fiddles. And I saw it, but you didn’t. You let her. You believed her. All she’d done to you -- to me, to us -- and you followed after her like you’d forgotten the last ten years.”
The lump was hard in his throat, and Stephen struggled to catch his breath. It was worse than he’d thought, then. All he’d done; it was so much worse. He wasn’t some meandering victim. He wasn’t a haphazard, ambiguous player. No, Stephen was the bad guy. He’d slept with another man’s life and lied about it for ten years. Given the chance to make things right, he’d returned like a dog to its damn vomit.
He was shaking now. He sat back, feeling himself shrink. “Then you never should have come at all,” he said, his voice feeling hollow. He was no longer able to meet Cutter’s gaze. “I mean, Cutter, I don’t remember what you’re saying, but the betrayal you’re describing -- the things I did -- you don’t have to be here. No matter how sorry you feel for me, you don’t have to be here.”
Cutter stepped forward again, and the intensity of his presence was too hard to resist now. Stephen looked up, and Cutter’s gaze was intent upon him. “It’s not pity, Stephen,” he said. “And you’re the one with amnesia here. I’m the one who remembers.”
“Exactly, Cutter--”
“No,” Cutter cut him off, edging closer still. “I’m the one who knows what happened, and I don’t remember betrayal. Not one second of it.”
All his confidence, all his clarity, all his certainty -- Stephen couldn’t find it now. He felt himself, almost pulling apart at the seams. Cutter was either one to save him or destroy him, and Stephen knew which one he deserved.
He just couldn’t be sure which one was coming.
“You don’t?” he barely dared to ask. Candor had its place, but only when you remembered the truth. At the moment, Stephen couldn’t remember anything at all, his head was thrumming so frantically.
And Nick was right in front of him now, close enough to smell his aftershave, see the worry lines set deeper than Stephen had realized into his forehead and around his eyes. “You didn’t betray me, see. You saved me. You saved us all,” he said, as if this truth might buoy them both up. “Helen played you -- yes -- but only because you wanted to believe the best in her. I knew she was up to no good, and I warned you as much, but it didn’t really matter in the end. I underestimated her just as much as you did. I didn’t think she was smart enough, in the end. You didn’t think she was evil enough. And we were both wrong.”
All these years; all these secrets. Stephen drew a breath and held it in his ruined chest until it hurt.
“By the time we realized what she was up to -- either one of us -- it was too late,” Cutter continued. “She was going to win. She was going to destroy a lot of things -- kill a lot of people. You won’t believe me now, but it’s true. Every bad thing we’ve ever believed about her -- it’s true and then some.”
Stephen felt himself twitch, swallowing convulsively. “What happened?”
This time, Cutter didn’t flinch. This time, Cutter didn’t look away. This time, Cutter held his gaze and told him the truth. “She had creatures -- all sorts of them -- designed to kill, and she had plans to unleash them, let them out into London,” he said. “The door only locked from the inside and there was no other way to stop them. There was no other way, so you punched me out and locked yourself in with them in my place. You locked yourself in there, knowing you’d get ripped to shreds. You gave up your life for the rest of us -- for the world -- for me. You blamed yourself for Helen’s plans, and you gave up your life to make it right. And that’s what no one will tell you. That’s what happened, Stephen. That’s what you don’t remember.”
It was too much, in the end. The truth, naked and raw, was nothing and everything Stephen had feared. The idea that Helen had come back to destroy them was both expected and unforeseeable, and as much as it sounded like a nightmare, Stephen found every word to be believable. Helen had come back and done more than out him. She had tempted him, and he had fallen for it. He had trusted her again, and Stephen had nearly forfeited Nick in the process. The idea that he would give himself up after that was only sensible. Losing Nick would already rip him from limb to limb. What would it matter to go and make it literal?
And yet, he had survived.
They had survived.
Taut, Stephen did not dare move. He did not trust himself to as much as breathe.
Cutter finally crossed the last of the distance, sitting down on the bed next to Stephen. He reached out, taking up Stephen’s limpid fingers in his own with sudden vigor. “That’s what I remember, Stephen,” he said, crying in earnest now. “That’s the only thing I really remember, when you get right down to it. I remember nothing about being angry or disappointed. I don’t really remember why I punched you or sacked you. I just remember looking at you in that room, watching you as the predators circled, and thinking how terrified I was of facing life without you.”
Stephen shook his head, feeling weaker than he had since waking up a month ago. “But the things I did. Going back to Helen. Things I don’t even remember--”
Cutter interjected again, more adamant now. “Things you don’t need to remember.”
Stephen exhaled heavily, emotions swelling in a rush. “But I have to make amends.”
But Cutter didn’t waver. His grip held fast and his eyes stayed steady. “Are you listening to me? You did make amends, Stephen,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so hard to be here. Because I almost let you die without telling you that I forgive you. I let you think that dying was the only way to rectify the mistake you’d made. I almost lost you because I was so set on being right. Seeing you, being here, it reminds me how fragile it all is, and that scares me. I don’t know how to face this world without you, Stephen. I don’t know how to face it at all.”
He understood the fear now. He understood the reticence. The deep rooted survival instinct, fight of flight, but there was no place left for them to go. All the places they could hide, all the things they could forget, they would always come back to be confronted by one another and the truth that had been there all along.
He would forget so many things.
But he wouldn’t forget this.
This moment.
This truth.
“But it was my fault,” he said, the thought as much a start of an idea as it was the end of one.
“And you think that sleeping with Helen meant you had to die?” Cutter asked. “You think that believing the best in someone means you don’t deserve to live?”
His breath caught in his throat and his eyes burned more than before. “Maybe,” he whispered, a meager, terrified confession.
Cutter looked like his heart nearly broke. “Stephen, if you talk like that, then I really will have to go,” he said. “And I won’t look back.”
Stephen let out the breath he’d been holding, feeling bereft. “I just can’t remember, Nick,” he said. “If I can’t remember, then how do I make it right? And the things I do remember -- I wish I could forget. I barely know what’s keeping me together as it is, and you throw that in the mix, and I don’t know how to make any of it parse. I might as well just fall apart.”
It was getting away from him, then. Stephen had excellent self control right up until the moment he didn’t. He had his breaking point -- rather, he had a very particular style of breaking point, and it involved anyone named Cutter. And now that he’d reached it -- again, it seemed, and again -- none of the stitches would keep him together. None of the bandages would be enough to hold his insides back. He was going to fall apart, splayed on the ground, weeping and laid bare.
But Cutter’s grip was firm, and he held tighter still. “You trust me, right?”
Stephen felt lightheaded; he felt surreal. “What?”
Cutter lowered his head, ducking down to make sure that Stephen’s eyes were right on his. “You trust me.”
This time, it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an invective. It was just a truth that they had both forgotten, once. And one that they had remembered together.
There was only one answer to give. “Of course.”
Cutter very nearly smiled, tears stained with tears and fingers warm and familiar. “Then trust me on this,” he said, squeezing Stephen’s fingers. “We’re remembering the important bits.”
He reached his hand up, brushing it against Stephen’s cheek and Stephen melted into the touch. A sob escaped his lips, and Cutter’s head bobbed forward until their foreheads touched.
“And as far as I’m concerned,” Cutter told him, as resolute as a promise. “We can forget all the rest.”
-o-
Stephen was released from the hospital, and he finished his recovery at home. He regained full mobility of his hands, and within another month, his stamina had greatly improved. It took him longer to refine his fine motor skills, and he reckoned his shot was always going to be a hair less accurate, but he was still the best marksman on the team by a ways, so it didn’t seem to matter much.
And he was part of a team. He didn’t remember them at first, but they welcomed him back all the same. Abby and Connor were giddy to have him back, and Jenny was incredibly patient as she reintroduced him to the way things worked at the ARC. When he met Lester, he was quite pleased to have forgotten him, but that was just how it was, it seemed. There were new people on the team -- Becker and Sarah -- but they seemed as natural to Stephen as the rest, so it was just as well.
Eventually, Stephen remembered the rest of it. The details came back to him slowly and in bits. Sometimes, he would surprise himself with a memory he’d forgotten that he’d forgotten, and sometimes he’d talk about times he couldn’t quite remember having at all. With the help of a therapist, he put most of the pieces together until there was a cognizant narrative of the whole thing. The anomalies, Helen’s return, the creatures that tore him apart.
The starkness of it haunted him, sometimes, and there were days he was wrenched from sleep with a silent scream lodged in his throat. Sometimes, his reattached hand would ache for no reason at all, and he would occasionally have a panic attack when a dark haired woman was bent over a telescope just like Helen used to back at the lab.
That was the thing about recovery: it wasn’t about getting better. It was about becoming complete again.
The funny thing was that Cutter never recovered his memories. In fact, as time went on, he seemed to only get worse about it. He welcomed Stephen back with open arms. He was far too protective in the field, and he followed him around like a puppy back at the ARC. After several months, he nearly insisted Stephen move in with him, just to be sure that he was safe and sound. Stephen, naturally, had no objection. Because Cutter never remembered, see.
He never remembered that he had every right to hate Stephen.
Instead, he loved him more than he ever had, more than Stephen had any right to. Sometimes, when Stephen was having a bad day, when the memories were too much, he asked Nick why.
The bastard smiled and stroked his hair. “Amnesia, remember?” he said. “That’s all it is. Amnesia.”
Over time, however, Stephen learned to just call it what it was: love.
Part Two
For all that the conversation and fact-finding foray was an utter and complete failure, the Indian carry out was pretty good, and Stephen had to admit he was starting to like this Abby and Connor duo. Separately, he imagined they might be a little aggravating, but they offered each other a good balance. Of course, it would be easier to imagine working alongside them if he knew what they all did for a living, but Stephen didn’t have the luxury of caring too much about that, lest he drive himself wholly insane.
Short trip, he might imagine. For a guy whose clinical diagnose was amnesia, that was.
The fact that he found he enjoyed their visits was notwithstanding, however. Stephen was still faced with the vexing reality of Nick Cutter. He was going to be released in several days time, and he still had only seen his best friend a handful of times. Pretty soon he was going to be left to his own devices to confront Cutter as he pleased, but that begged a necessary and pressing question.
Did he please?
What did he please?
How could he possibly please anything?
The conversation with Abby and Connor had been clear as mud, but it hadn’t been totally worthless. Between their vague assurances and tepid denials, they had let slip a few implications that Stephen could work through in his fractured mind. Was it a little obsessive to break down every detail of a conversation? Yes, yes it was. But it wasn’t like Stephen had much else to do with his time.
First and foremost, he had clearly gotten involved with some pretty weird stuff over the last several years. Calling it top secret had sounded fantastical when he first woke up. Now, it sounded like a pathetic excuse for a euphemism. Top secret just meant the most impossible, improbable, fantastical versions of reality were increasingly likely to be true.
To point, though he had clearly been attacked by an animal, there was no way it was a simple animal attack. Stephen knew a lot about large predators; he knew that dying by tooth and claw wasn’t pretty. But his scars? The wounds crisscrossing his body?
He wasn’t going to kid himself anymore. This wasn’t an attack. This had been nothing short of a damn feeding frenzy. Why he had been on the menu -- Stephen wasn’t sure -- but he was sure that when all was said and done, no one was going to sheepishly admit that he’d been ravaged by a pack of wild dogs in London.
The question of what had attacked him was certainly mind-boggling, but after his talk with Connor and Abby, he heartily deduced that the nature of his attack probably wasn’t all that important. Sure, the physical scars were going to stalk him the rest of his life, but if this was just that Stephen wasn’t a pretty face anymore, then Cutter wouldn’t have thought twice. He doubted Cutter had ever noticed his pretty face in the first place; he wasn’t likely to start now.
Which meant that the real trauma that had occurred wasn’t physical. Based on the innuendo and deference, this altercation had emotional roots.
Had Stephen made a hard call in the field? Had he defied orders? Had Cutter been responsible for sending him into some sort of fray?
But it was more than that; Stephen was confident of that now. Cutter, being inherently inept with his emotions, would still not be put off his guard to this degree. If he were simply guilty or worried, it wouldn't warrant this extreme style of response and the ongoing distance.
No, if anything, Cutter’s appearance indicated that he was trying to put something behind him. Stephen had assumed it was PTSD or something similar related to the incident, but Abby and Connor had suggested something else entirely while trying not to suggest anything at all.
They had said something had come between them.
A falling out, then.
But why?
Stephen had always followed Cutter’s lead. Cutter had always trusted him implicitly. Nothing had ever come between them. Nothing that Cutter needed to know about, anyway.
Just like that, Stephen stopped. His heart stuttered. His chest stilled. The color drained from his cheeks, and he could feel cold like a bucket of water over his head. Goosebumps fleshed out his arms, and he felt momentarily ill.
Stephen hadn’t always been loyal, after all. Of all the things he’d forgotten, he hated that this was something he could still remember. That his loyalty to Cutter wasn’t as perfectly altruistic as he made it out to be. It had never been Cutter who was working himself over to make up for some wrongdoing. No, that was Stephen’s game -- and Stephen’s game alone.
That was how all this had started, after all. Stephen had gone and slept with another man’s wife and felt so guilty about it that he gave up all his dreams, all his plans and dedicated the rest of his life to making the man whose wife he’d slept with happy.
That was why he understood Cutter even when Cutter didn’t understand himself. That was why he’d pinpointed from the first moment just how unhinged Cutter was right now. This wasn’t about an animal attack. This wasn’t a top secret anything. This wasn’t about state’s secrets.
This was about Stephen’s secrets.
His one, terrible secret. The one he would never live down. Even when he forgot everything else, he’d still remember that. He would always remember that, to the very day he died, his last breath.
And just like that, it came to him, nothing short of a revelation. Like a light switch, all the puzzle pieces falling perfectly into place. Stephen understood now. Stephen understood everything.
Cutter’s pinched features; his flushed face. His strained tone; his inability to make eye contact. The way he kept showing up but barely getting inside the room.
The man wasn’t in a nonfunctional state because coping with seeing Stephen ripped to shreds was hard.
No, the man was in a dysfunctional state because Stephen had ripped his marriage to shreds.
Worse than that, he’d never told him.
Stephen couldn’t remember the last five years, and he’d always liked to think he’d do the right thing in the end. But what was ten years compared to five years? He was never going to tell Cutter willingly. It only made sense that they ended up working for a top secret government program. Even more sense that Stephen had gone and fouled it up. Story of his life, apparently. All these secrets, all of them far too dangerous to be kept.
Had he confessed under pressure? Had someone outed him? A few people had known, of course. Hell, for all he knew, Helen Cutter herself had reappeared from the mystical abyss and pitted the two of them against each other. That would be just like her, wouldn’t it? And she was evidence that the most dangerous creatures didn’t need claws or sharp teeth to tear you down to the bone.
No doubt, it hadn’t been a quiet affair either. The truth had been publically made, which was why no one really wanted to get into it. Why would Connor and Abby want to wade into that mess? How would Jenny explain the aftermath of his adultery so many years after the fact?
To some extent, Stephen knew this was speculation. No one had said anything, but that was the point, in the end. Why else would Cutter be this distant? Why else would Cutter alternate between compassion and anger? Trauma, fear, awkwardness -- all totally understandable when your best mate barely survived a top secret attack. But Cutter would have stayed if that was all it was. He would have answered the questions; he would have dabbled in the truth.
This was the only thing that made sense. The only thing that explained anything.
Cutter had been reluctant to come because he didn’t know how to forgive the man who slept with his life and lied about it for 10 years.
Cutter wasn’t sure he even could forgive Stephen, no matter what pity or loyalty might try to dictate to him.
It seemed impossible, really. Or, at the very least, improbable. But then again, Stephen’s hand had been severed clean off, and no one would tell him how or why. Clearly, whatever mess Stephen had gotten himself into, it wasn’t about probabilities anymore. The truth, whatever it may be, was entirely within the realm of the improbable and, quite likely, the impossible.
So Stephen was left with a few impossible conclusions that were inexplicably probable.
First, something mysterious had ripped Stephen apart.
Second, something far more plain had done just as thorough of a job on Cutter.
Now, Stephen had a team of doctors working on him, putting all the pieces back together again, but it was going to be up to Stephen -- and likely Stephen alone -- if anyone was going to put Nick Cutter back together again.
-o-
The decision was a good one, and it was probably a month in coming. He had spent a month, recovering, healing and figuring things out, and now that it had all come together -- he was just going to have to wait a little longer.
The doctors wanted another week, see. The therapist wanted him to have a little more stamina. The psychiatrist wanted to tweak a few more medications. And as Stephen didn’t remember anything about his current life circumstances, it wasn’t like he was even going to know how to get home. He had no idea if he still lived in the same flat. Did he live in a flat? Where was his employer? Did he have a car? A pass to the underground?
One last week, then, Stephen resigned himself to that inevitability. One last week of hospital bleach and bumming carryout from Abby and Connor. One more week of wishing Cutter would show up. One more week before he’d chuck caution to the wind and limp his way after Cutter.
The irony was rich, naturally. That Stephen was barely put together, still stitching together the disparate pieces of his own life. And here he was, ready to run off and put Cutter back together, piece by meticulous piece. He didn’t need all of himself for that, he decided. He needed just enough to give what he had to Cutter and hope like hell it was enough.
One more week.
-o-
Then, out of nowhere, the night before Stephen was supposed to be released, someone knocked on his door just before the end of visiting hours. Stephen figured it was his nurse, coming to see if he needed anything before the end of his shift, and he was lazily doing a crossword puzzle and listening to his iPod as he called for them to come in.
The door opened, and there, standing in the entrance, was Nick Cutter.
Cutter looked the same as he had every other visit. He looked stiff and unnatural; he looked uncomfortable and miserable. Grief-stricken and abjectly angry, Cutter blinked at him in surprise.
Equally surprised, Stephen blinked back.
He’d spent the better part of a week preparing to confront Nick, to lay it all bare between them, clear the air.
But it had all been on his terms. He’d imagined himself, stalking his way into Cutter’s flat, winded and standing on his own two feet. He pictured himself waiting for Cutter at the university, poised at his desk, arms crossed and waiting.
In his mind, it had been appropriately dramatic, and he’d been ready with the confession on the tip of his tongue.
This time, however, Stephen was flat on his ass, chewing the back of his pen cap, trying to figure out if he knew the lyrics to the Beatles’ number one hit Love, Love Me Do to fill in three across. He was wearing fuzzy socks with gripped bottoms like he’s a toddler, for goodness sakes.
“Hi,” Cutter said.
Stephen swallowed quickly and sat up, hastily putting the newspaper to the side and tossing his chewed up pen on the bed. “Hi,” he replied.
The overture was understated, to say the least. And yet, with this bare minimum greeting, Cutter looked like he’d nearly reached his limit. Looking like a deer in the headlights, it seemed like his best friend was about to bolt again.
Stephen, therefore, was out of options. He couldn’t remember what happened a month ago, but he knew what happened ten years ago. If he let Cutter go, then neither of them would remember the real reasons why they’d gotten to this unfortunate circumstance in the first place.
For a month, everyone had been so afraid to speak the truth. Given the secrets he’d been harboring, it wasn’t like he could blame them. But this past month had given him perspective on truth and meaning. People told lies with the best of intentions, but the dishonesty left everyone paralyzed. The things you wanted to forget were the things you’d always remember, and that was for better and for worse.
Sitting there, in his damn fuzzy socks in a hospital room, Stephen didn’t see the point in pretending. If Cutter was going to leave, at least they would part on common ground this time.
“I don’t know what happened to me to put me in this state, but I know what happened to you,” he blurted, the words coming out so fast that he couldn’t have stopped them even if he were so inclined. “But the thing is, I know what’s happened to you to put you in this state. I know you know the truth, Cutter, and that’s why you can’t stay here long enough to look me in the eye and tell me the truth. Because the truth is hard between us. The truth is that I hurt you in ways that no one should ever hurt another person, and I don’t actually even know why you keep bothering to come here at all.”
Cutter seemed to go still, so still it wasn’t clear he was breathing.
Stephen sighed and threw up his hands. “I suppose it’s guilt,” he continued. “You feel guilty because I’m here and you’re there, but you shouldn’t feel guilty, Nick. I slept with your wife, and we both know it. It was a long time ago, and I was young and stupid and I’m sorry for it, but I still did it. And it doesn’t matter what happened after that -- if you don’t want to be here, then I understand. You don’t have to stay and you don’t have to keep coming back.”
Cutter all but gaped. Breathing stunted, he shook his head. “Stephen, you don’t have to--”
“What, apologize?” he prompted with a scoff. “Nick, I literally slept with your wife and there are a million reasons but if any of them were worth a damn, I would have told you years ago. But I didn’t because I knew it was wrong, and I’m just too much of a coward to face it.”
Flushing red, Cutter looked like he was ready to start vibrating. Anger, maybe. Fear, probably. Too much emotion, too fast. “You don’t have to do this.”
“Sure, I do,” Stephen said, matter of fact. “I have to do it because I should have done it years ago. I have to do it because I can’t remember everything and you can’t forget. I have to do it because you’re my friend, and I’m an idiot.”
“Look,” Cutter said, lifting a hand as if he were trying to reason the conversation back on course. “You nearly died--”
“So?” Stephen asked. He shrugged. “Getting ripped to shreds doesn’t change what I did. I mean, I know I can’t remember much, but I’m pretty sure no matter what story you guys eventually tell me will justify the lie I’ve been trying to forget for ten years.”
Cutter took a staggering breath, almost like he was holding back a sob. “Stephen--”
But Stephen couldn’t heed the call. He couldn’t stop. Because for all the things he’d forgotten since the incident, he was faced now with the things he would never forget. The rush of adrenaline when Helen kissed him. The sound of her voice as she’d told him that her marriage was over. The cold, hard regret when he’d finally met Nick and realized he’d fallen in love with the wrong damn Cutter.
And he remembered, so acutely, the way the truth had gotten stuck in his throat, burned in his eyes. He remembered how drawn he’d been to Nick, even from the start. Call it regret; call it penance. He hadn’t been ready to call it what it was, but he was now.
Back then, he’d been afraid to lose what he didn’t know how to name.
Now, he was afraid to lose what he’d never have if he didn’t finally lay it all on the table.
Some things you didn’t have to remember.
Other things, you would be a fool to forget.
“So you don’t have to pretend, if you don’t want to. You don’t have to be okay. You don’t have to come here at all, and I’d totally understand, I would,” Stephen said. “But I just want you to know that I remember what matters. I remember.”
Trembling now, Cutter looked terrified, but he was frozen in place. This was the memory they shared, after all. Even if neither one knew what future it was building toward. “What exactly do you remember?” Cutter finally asked, voice no more than a whisper.
Stephen put his feet down and sat forward. He looked up, right into Nick’s eyes. It hurt to remember, sometimes. How much he missed this. How much he needed this. How much he didn’t know who he’d be without this.
The lie had been selfish, yes, but not for the reasons most people would think.
“I remember thinking how I should have left when Helen disappeared. I should have left school, pursued my studies elsewhere, done anything,” he said. “But there you were -- you had no idea -- and there you were. I was just drawn to you. Some people might call it pity, but it wasn’t that, Cutter. I swear to you, it wasn’t that. It wasn’t pity or sorrow or penance. It was just when I was with you, I forgot her entirely. You were the best kind of amnesia.”
Cutter’s blue eyes were shining, and he didn’t dare blink. Poised by the door, he didn’t dare move. “What are you saying exactly?”
“I’m saying,” Stephen said, as simply as he could. “I never told you the truth because the idea of risking my relationship with you over her was impossible to bear. She was never worth it. You were.”
This time, Cutter did blink. A tear snaked down his cheek and he shook his head almost in desperation. “Stephen.”
“It’s an excuse, of course. All I have are excuses,” Stephen said. “I don’t know what happened to us since then, but I know how this started. I know the way I began set us up for failure, and here we are. It’s my fault, no matter how it played out this is my fault. And the things I broke between us aren’t the things you can stitch together or rehab. And I’m sorry for that, Nick. I don’t think you’ll ever know just how sorry I am.”
He’d said it, then. He’d spoken the willfully forgotten truth from all those years ago. He’d brought the memory to fruition and exorcised the ghosts. Helen Cutter might destroy him -- she might destroy both of them -- but Stephen would not allow her to stalk him anymore.
At the doorway, Cutter stood like a tree that had been axed in the middle. He waffled, nearly felled, and it was a visible effort for him to pull his emotions back into check enough to speak at all. Even when he did, the effort looked rending. “You’re wrong,” he said, blinking furiously as more tears poured down his cheeks. “I think I do know.”
Now, it was Stephen’s turn to feel at a loss. He’d started this conversation with a purpose, but now faced with the ending, he found he didn’t know what was going to happen next. He felt startled, and his heart skipped a beat and his palms started to sweat. “What do you mean?”
The truth had a solidifying effect, it seemed. Cutter stepped forward, inward from the door of his own volition, eyes locked on Stephen like there wasn’t anyone else in the entire world. “You’re right. About what happened. I did find out, Stephen. I found out everything,” he explained. “I found out about the affair in the worst way possible, and you humiliated me. You pulled at the fabric of everything I thought was binding us together. You hurt me. You hurt me in ways I didn’t think were even possible.”
He’d brought truth to the table, and he’d laid it bare. He had no right to object when it was thrown right back at him. But the plainness of Cutter’s confession was more cutting than he’d anticipated. Nothing being said was outside of what Stephen had visualized, but for Cutter to say it, to hear it from Nick’s lips--
Well, that would be something he’d never forget, he was quite sure of that as the words physically wrenched through his chest with more ferocity than any tooth or claw ever could. His eyes stung; his cheeks burned. Shame, horror, humiliation, regret, grief.
Cutter, however, didn’t stop this time. Instead of retreating, he took another step forward, closer and closer to Stephen with each heartbeat between them. “Because Helen came back, see. Just materialized, almost out of thin air,” Cutter said. “And it was like she’d never left. Played us both like fiddles. And I saw it, but you didn’t. You let her. You believed her. All she’d done to you -- to me, to us -- and you followed after her like you’d forgotten the last ten years.”
The lump was hard in his throat, and Stephen struggled to catch his breath. It was worse than he’d thought, then. All he’d done; it was so much worse. He wasn’t some meandering victim. He wasn’t a haphazard, ambiguous player. No, Stephen was the bad guy. He’d slept with another man’s life and lied about it for ten years. Given the chance to make things right, he’d returned like a dog to its damn vomit.
He was shaking now. He sat back, feeling himself shrink. “Then you never should have come at all,” he said, his voice feeling hollow. He was no longer able to meet Cutter’s gaze. “I mean, Cutter, I don’t remember what you’re saying, but the betrayal you’re describing -- the things I did -- you don’t have to be here. No matter how sorry you feel for me, you don’t have to be here.”
Cutter stepped forward again, and the intensity of his presence was too hard to resist now. Stephen looked up, and Cutter’s gaze was intent upon him. “It’s not pity, Stephen,” he said. “And you’re the one with amnesia here. I’m the one who remembers.”
“Exactly, Cutter--”
“No,” Cutter cut him off, edging closer still. “I’m the one who knows what happened, and I don’t remember betrayal. Not one second of it.”
All his confidence, all his clarity, all his certainty -- Stephen couldn’t find it now. He felt himself, almost pulling apart at the seams. Cutter was either one to save him or destroy him, and Stephen knew which one he deserved.
He just couldn’t be sure which one was coming.
“You don’t?” he barely dared to ask. Candor had its place, but only when you remembered the truth. At the moment, Stephen couldn’t remember anything at all, his head was thrumming so frantically.
And Nick was right in front of him now, close enough to smell his aftershave, see the worry lines set deeper than Stephen had realized into his forehead and around his eyes. “You didn’t betray me, see. You saved me. You saved us all,” he said, as if this truth might buoy them both up. “Helen played you -- yes -- but only because you wanted to believe the best in her. I knew she was up to no good, and I warned you as much, but it didn’t really matter in the end. I underestimated her just as much as you did. I didn’t think she was smart enough, in the end. You didn’t think she was evil enough. And we were both wrong.”
All these years; all these secrets. Stephen drew a breath and held it in his ruined chest until it hurt.
“By the time we realized what she was up to -- either one of us -- it was too late,” Cutter continued. “She was going to win. She was going to destroy a lot of things -- kill a lot of people. You won’t believe me now, but it’s true. Every bad thing we’ve ever believed about her -- it’s true and then some.”
Stephen felt himself twitch, swallowing convulsively. “What happened?”
This time, Cutter didn’t flinch. This time, Cutter didn’t look away. This time, Cutter held his gaze and told him the truth. “She had creatures -- all sorts of them -- designed to kill, and she had plans to unleash them, let them out into London,” he said. “The door only locked from the inside and there was no other way to stop them. There was no other way, so you punched me out and locked yourself in with them in my place. You locked yourself in there, knowing you’d get ripped to shreds. You gave up your life for the rest of us -- for the world -- for me. You blamed yourself for Helen’s plans, and you gave up your life to make it right. And that’s what no one will tell you. That’s what happened, Stephen. That’s what you don’t remember.”
It was too much, in the end. The truth, naked and raw, was nothing and everything Stephen had feared. The idea that Helen had come back to destroy them was both expected and unforeseeable, and as much as it sounded like a nightmare, Stephen found every word to be believable. Helen had come back and done more than out him. She had tempted him, and he had fallen for it. He had trusted her again, and Stephen had nearly forfeited Nick in the process. The idea that he would give himself up after that was only sensible. Losing Nick would already rip him from limb to limb. What would it matter to go and make it literal?
And yet, he had survived.
They had survived.
Taut, Stephen did not dare move. He did not trust himself to as much as breathe.
Cutter finally crossed the last of the distance, sitting down on the bed next to Stephen. He reached out, taking up Stephen’s limpid fingers in his own with sudden vigor. “That’s what I remember, Stephen,” he said, crying in earnest now. “That’s the only thing I really remember, when you get right down to it. I remember nothing about being angry or disappointed. I don’t really remember why I punched you or sacked you. I just remember looking at you in that room, watching you as the predators circled, and thinking how terrified I was of facing life without you.”
Stephen shook his head, feeling weaker than he had since waking up a month ago. “But the things I did. Going back to Helen. Things I don’t even remember--”
Cutter interjected again, more adamant now. “Things you don’t need to remember.”
Stephen exhaled heavily, emotions swelling in a rush. “But I have to make amends.”
But Cutter didn’t waver. His grip held fast and his eyes stayed steady. “Are you listening to me? You did make amends, Stephen,” he said. “And that’s why it’s so hard to be here. Because I almost let you die without telling you that I forgive you. I let you think that dying was the only way to rectify the mistake you’d made. I almost lost you because I was so set on being right. Seeing you, being here, it reminds me how fragile it all is, and that scares me. I don’t know how to face this world without you, Stephen. I don’t know how to face it at all.”
He understood the fear now. He understood the reticence. The deep rooted survival instinct, fight of flight, but there was no place left for them to go. All the places they could hide, all the things they could forget, they would always come back to be confronted by one another and the truth that had been there all along.
He would forget so many things.
But he wouldn’t forget this.
This moment.
This truth.
“But it was my fault,” he said, the thought as much a start of an idea as it was the end of one.
“And you think that sleeping with Helen meant you had to die?” Cutter asked. “You think that believing the best in someone means you don’t deserve to live?”
His breath caught in his throat and his eyes burned more than before. “Maybe,” he whispered, a meager, terrified confession.
Cutter looked like his heart nearly broke. “Stephen, if you talk like that, then I really will have to go,” he said. “And I won’t look back.”
Stephen let out the breath he’d been holding, feeling bereft. “I just can’t remember, Nick,” he said. “If I can’t remember, then how do I make it right? And the things I do remember -- I wish I could forget. I barely know what’s keeping me together as it is, and you throw that in the mix, and I don’t know how to make any of it parse. I might as well just fall apart.”
It was getting away from him, then. Stephen had excellent self control right up until the moment he didn’t. He had his breaking point -- rather, he had a very particular style of breaking point, and it involved anyone named Cutter. And now that he’d reached it -- again, it seemed, and again -- none of the stitches would keep him together. None of the bandages would be enough to hold his insides back. He was going to fall apart, splayed on the ground, weeping and laid bare.
But Cutter’s grip was firm, and he held tighter still. “You trust me, right?”
Stephen felt lightheaded; he felt surreal. “What?”
Cutter lowered his head, ducking down to make sure that Stephen’s eyes were right on his. “You trust me.”
This time, it wasn’t a question. It wasn’t an invective. It was just a truth that they had both forgotten, once. And one that they had remembered together.
There was only one answer to give. “Of course.”
Cutter very nearly smiled, tears stained with tears and fingers warm and familiar. “Then trust me on this,” he said, squeezing Stephen’s fingers. “We’re remembering the important bits.”
He reached his hand up, brushing it against Stephen’s cheek and Stephen melted into the touch. A sob escaped his lips, and Cutter’s head bobbed forward until their foreheads touched.
“And as far as I’m concerned,” Cutter told him, as resolute as a promise. “We can forget all the rest.”
-o-
Stephen was released from the hospital, and he finished his recovery at home. He regained full mobility of his hands, and within another month, his stamina had greatly improved. It took him longer to refine his fine motor skills, and he reckoned his shot was always going to be a hair less accurate, but he was still the best marksman on the team by a ways, so it didn’t seem to matter much.
And he was part of a team. He didn’t remember them at first, but they welcomed him back all the same. Abby and Connor were giddy to have him back, and Jenny was incredibly patient as she reintroduced him to the way things worked at the ARC. When he met Lester, he was quite pleased to have forgotten him, but that was just how it was, it seemed. There were new people on the team -- Becker and Sarah -- but they seemed as natural to Stephen as the rest, so it was just as well.
Eventually, Stephen remembered the rest of it. The details came back to him slowly and in bits. Sometimes, he would surprise himself with a memory he’d forgotten that he’d forgotten, and sometimes he’d talk about times he couldn’t quite remember having at all. With the help of a therapist, he put most of the pieces together until there was a cognizant narrative of the whole thing. The anomalies, Helen’s return, the creatures that tore him apart.
The starkness of it haunted him, sometimes, and there were days he was wrenched from sleep with a silent scream lodged in his throat. Sometimes, his reattached hand would ache for no reason at all, and he would occasionally have a panic attack when a dark haired woman was bent over a telescope just like Helen used to back at the lab.
That was the thing about recovery: it wasn’t about getting better. It was about becoming complete again.
The funny thing was that Cutter never recovered his memories. In fact, as time went on, he seemed to only get worse about it. He welcomed Stephen back with open arms. He was far too protective in the field, and he followed him around like a puppy back at the ARC. After several months, he nearly insisted Stephen move in with him, just to be sure that he was safe and sound. Stephen, naturally, had no objection. Because Cutter never remembered, see.
He never remembered that he had every right to hate Stephen.
Instead, he loved him more than he ever had, more than Stephen had any right to. Sometimes, when Stephen was having a bad day, when the memories were too much, he asked Nick why.
The bastard smiled and stroked his hair. “Amnesia, remember?” he said. “That’s all it is. Amnesia.”
Over time, however, Stephen learned to just call it what it was: love.
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Date: 2020-12-23 11:54 am (UTC)The painful talks, but the honesty and love coming from it. I love it.
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Date: 2021-01-01 12:00 am (UTC)I love Stephen’s worry about Cutter here – how to help him and try to fix things, even while Stephen himself is in such a condition. ‘She was never worth it. You were’ – exactly. And I liked Cutter’s speech about Stephen almost dying before Cutter could tell him he was forgiven.
Yay, they got to the important bits together! They’ll make it and be all right
Great to see the other characters in there too. Thanks very much for my pressie