Archive of Our Own ^beta

I.

At first he couldn't fucking believe it. It was like seeing a ghost. Inconceivable, and yet, right there before his fucking eyes. 

Because there is no mistaking you for someone else. It's been ten years, but the memory of you is still burned behind his eyelids. A beloved collection of shapes he could never forget. He loved you with his whole heart once, broken as it was…and maybe he never got over that. 

Buried it, yes. That was just a matter of survival. But when his aunt introduces Dr. Julian Mercer, and the lovely woman on his arm, y/n– that name that he has engraved on his soul rings down the empty halls of his heart…he can't say a fucking thing.

All he can do is stare, and wait for the ground to open up and swallow him whole. For surely this must be hell? Bring in the flames and pitchforks. They can't hurt any worse than the sight of your precious face does now, looking at him like you don't have a goddamn clue how you ripped out his heart when you left him on the bridge that day. 

He thought you were dead.

That was the whole thing.

He’d begged you to let him stay by your side, but you'd insisted you didn't want to be remembered as a husk of the girl you were, a sickly bedridden wraith. You'd promised to go home to your family. To die. 

Mourning you almost killed him. 

For months on end he wanted to die, would have welcomed it, anything to not have to feel that grinding, soul-crushing pain–and the person that came out the other side of that was a changed man. Worse than the one you’d fixed one sweet November, so long ago it feels like an opium dream. 

You would not like the man he’s become. 

He knows it in his gut, and he is both ashamed and infuriated by the thought of coming up short in a judgement from you. Who do you think you are, anyway?

Your answer to that, had he asked rather than snorting like an angry bull and charging away, would be that you don’t really know. 

There are holes in your memory. Big ones. Things that were wiped from your mind forever after the risky brain surgery that ultimately saved your life. 

Don’t get you wrong, you are grateful to be alive. But ever since the moment you woke up in your hospital bed, hooked to tubes and monitors and bandaged like a mummy, you have had the feeling that something crucial was missing and you just didn’t know what. That feeling has persisted for the rest of your life. You’ve never been able to shake it, and here on this beautiful sun-drenched day in Napa with this surly, [ridiculously handsome] grouch of a man, you feel like you’ve just plunged down the fifty-foot drop of a rollercoaster with no seatbelt.

“Maybe it was the shrimp canapés?” Julian quips as the three of you watch Nelson storm off, mystified by his obvious anger.

“I apologize,” sniffs aunt June, dismayed by her nephew’s horrendous behavior. “He's…had some disappointments in his life the past few years.”

Julian squeezes you around the waist and laughs it off politely, moving on to a different topic with a social deftness you have never managed to master. But you cannot take your eyes off him, your eyes tracking his progress across the patio where everyone is mingling and drinking. He snags a glass of wine and sits on the sidelines, alone, glaring at the flagstones.

As though they know his tendencies all too well, no one tries to approach him. So why do you feel as though your heart is being squeezed in a merciless fist? 

You don't even know him, but you can tell that Nelson Moss is a miserable man. 

Why do you even care? 

If only you knew…

🍇🍇🍇

He avoids you like the plague for the rest of the weekend. You can tell he actively keeps his distance amongst the wedding guests, and you don't know why that bugs the ever loving shit out of you.

Here you are in this gorgeous place, some of the most beautiful vineyards in the world, eating amazing food with excellent wine, surrounded by friends and friendly acquaintances and not to mention your hot as fuck fiancé Doctor Julian Mercer…and you just. Can’t. Stop. Looking at him.

He's so handsome it hurts. Even while he's scowling like everyone here personally made a point to piss in his Cheerios. But that's not even it. There is something about this man that just makes you feel like there is a rope around your heart pulling mercilessly.

Something is terribly wrong. 

You just know it in your bones.

Because you're tracking him like a hawk during the rehearsal dinner, watching him engage in bouts of small talk with family members that he seems to enjoy about as much as having teeth pulled, you are aware of the second he slips away from the throng to one of the side patios for a quiet moment alone.

You know you shouldn't do what you're about to do. You have a fiancé who loves you, who is good to you. You have a life that is filled with everything a person should need to be happy. You are extremely lucky. Since your illness things have been touch and go for you. You fatigue easily, but Julian understands. He takes care of you with the attentiveness of a physician who is madly in love with his patient– which is exactly what happened for the two of you. His was the first face you saw when you woke up after your surgery. You were scared, and weak, and amazed to be alive. 

Who wouldn't fall in love? 

You have a good thing with Julian, you remind yourself for the umpteenth time. 

But as you look through the trees to the shadows where Nelson retreated, there is a part of you…that just has to know, no matter what the consequences. 

🌟🌙🌟

He couldn't take it anymore. 

He's been watching you this whole time, out the corner of his eye. Somehow, you haven't changed a bit, but everything is different. After watching that asshole doctor kiss your cheek for the umpteenth time…he had to go, or he was going to commit a murder.

It wouldn't be the first time he spoiled a family event with his temper, but it would probably be the last. 

Nelson seats himself wearily upon a stone wall, well away from the festivities. Hiding in the shadows like the sad sap he is.

How could he have been so stupid?

Because by now, he's convinced himself that you exaggerated your illness to break up with him. He knew he wasn't good at accepting refusal back then, but faking your imminent death seemed like a bit much. 

You’re so bright. So vibrant, so full of life. There's no way death came close to touching you. 

Is there?

“Excuse me?”

And now, he misses you so much that he is hallucinating the sound of your voice.

“Um, hello?”

Or not. His head whips to the side to find you, standing just inside the lights of the little side patio, the glow of a lantern shining behind your head like a halo.

“You've got to be kidding me,” he snarls.

You flinch at the venom in his tone, and he gets a single moment of satisfaction from landing this blow before he feels terrible. 

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“I would prefer that you didn't.”

You could weep for the anguish shining in his dark eyes, a crippling resentment plain for anyone to see. Living with such a poison seething inside must be hell. 

“Look. I’m sorry if I injured you–”

“Injured me? It’s not like you pushed me off a bike here, you deceptive, lying little–”

“I don't–”

“You manipulated me–”

“I DON’T REMEMBER!” you shout, desperate to be heard over this man’s wrath. 

“What?”

“I had a brain tumor,” you say more quietly, daring to step closer, holding out your hands like he is a wild animal you hope to tame. 

“I know!” he snarls. “Or at least, that's what you told me! Did you say it just to get rid of me?”

“What?”

He approaches you because he simply can’t help it, drawn like a moth to the flame. But you might be like two atoms on a collision course–if he touches you he just might explode.

“Did you pretend you were dying to break up with me? Because clearly…” He sharply gestures at the whole scope of you as though to say here you are, not dead–and you are ridiculously distracted by his big, beautiful hands. You don't know this man from Job, but there is an energy about him that stirs something inside you wild and long forgotten. Who is he??

Was this man really your boyfriend?

“So where did the good doctor fit in?” he needles you, unable to stop himself now that he's careening down this treacherous slope. “If I was November, was he December? Or did you have the decency to wait until January?”

“You asshole!” you snap back, poking him in his chest. Wow that’s solid muscle. “After my operation I couldn't remember anything! I swear to god, I don’t know who you are, but there’s no way I would have dated a jerk like you!”

“Oh yeah? See if this jogs your memory, sweetheart.” Before you even know what's happening he's grabbed you up with an arm around your waist and slanted his mouth over yours. And as much as you hate to admit it…you utterly melt under his lips claiming yours, everything else in the world melted away by this pure heat between you, this feeling of belonging singing through your bones while he devours you with lips and teeth and tongue.

You are so fucked. 

He is the first to tear away, because you certainly don't have the strength to. Your legs have practically turned to jelly, and even through the tremors running through his arms he supports you while searching your face with a frantic panic in his eyes. Suddenly he releases you like a hot coal, shaking his head in denial, that soft hair swinging to obscure his handsome face in shadow. 

He says nothing more, just turns on his heel to flee on those gorgeous long legs. He throws one last haunted look over his shoulder before disappearing around the side of the building.

Shaking like a leaf, you collapse to sit on the low stone wall, hugging yourself against the sudden night’s chill that has settled in your bones. 

You don’t know why, exactly…but you start to cry. You cry for something that you know you must have lost, and you have no idea how to put it back right again. 

🍇🍇🍇

He should not be here. 

It is the resounding thought that runs on repeat through Nelson’s brain. 

He cannot do this. He cannot be near you and pretend that he is a normal, well-adjusted human being. Okay, maybe he’s failed at that ruse for a while now…but seeing you like this makes him insane. 

He takes the shuttle from the winery back to the hotel where the wedding guests are staying, where he makes a B-line for his room and collapses on the bed, not even bothering to take off his shoes. 

He lays like that for hours, staring at a spot on the wall, though not really seeing it. All he sees is an ongoing reel of his memories of you, long buried as a matter of survival, all bubbling up to the surface with the fury of an erupting volcano. He’d never been happier, than that one blissful month he spent with you. He’d never loved anyone more, and he’s never loved anyone since. You were everything, and he knows he should be happy that you’re alive, but in some fucked up way he’s not because it means you could have been together all this time, but he was too much a coward and too big a fool to go looking for you. 

And he hates himself for that too. 

You opened a world of joy to him that he never even knew existed, then you took it all away in the blink of an eye. There's a part of him that wishes he never knew. Never met you. Never let you enthrall him under the spell of your manic pixie dreamgirl insanity.

If he hadn’t been such a fucking ass, the two of you could have been married now. Settled down together somewhere, maybe with a couple of kids, or maybe just enjoying your lives together in that happy little apartment in Potrero Hill. Morning coffee and sweet kisses and going to sleep every night with your head on his chest... That would have been enough. 

The two of you could have had it all.

Nelson has not cried since the day you left him on the bridge a decade ago, but tonight he finally breaks, weeping into his pillow until he is nothing but a wretched wrung-out husk of a man once more. He remembers this feeling…and he wishes he could just close his eyes and die all over again.

Living just hurts too much.

TBC...

please, remember me... -the trapeze swinger, iron & wine

II. 

It didn't all come crashing back like it does in the movies. It was more like the lifting of a fog, allowing you to just barely grasp the outlines of something tenuous that has been locked in the trap of your mind for over a decade. 

You suspect your time together with Nelson had been something rare and beautiful, and you don't understand why you never saw him again. 

You're afraid the answer to that is probably you.

“Is something wrong, sweetheart?” 

With his usual attentiveness, Julian could tell that something’s been up with you all night. Specifically, ever since June Morrison tried to introduce the two of you to her surly nephew. 

Julian had played it off well, but he's had an uneasy feeling ever since.

“I'm fine,” you tell him with a weak smile at his reflection in the mirror.

“Are you sure?” He wraps his arms around your waist, kissing your bare shoulder. “We’re here in this beautiful place, having a little vacay in wine country…but you don't seem to be enjoying yourself.”

You sigh, leaning back against the solid warmth of his body behind you. Since your surgery he’s been your wall, your shelter, your protector from the world. You came out the other side of that ordeal with a little more appreciation for the fragility of life. You knew you were not invincible anymore–your illness smacked your native bravado right on the nose. 

You know you owe your life to Julian. Though he's never held it over your head, it's definitely a part of your relationship, on your side at least. He's been so good to you, and the last thing you want is to hurt him with whatever the fuck is going on with you…but god. This mystery is eating you up inside.

“Remember…that guy earlier, who acted so weird?

“June’s nephew? Of course. Usually you have to be a proctologist to get that kind of reaction from someone.”

You smile at his little doctor joke, though your heart’s not in it. 

Well, he chewed me out, then he kissed me like he wanted to eat my face. Yeah, definitely not leading with that. 

“I think…I knew him. Before.”

 Julian tilts his head thoughtfully to that. “Oh?”

“I think…that maybe…” Your lip quivers with a sudden flood of dread, and you think on what June had said about Nelson. He’s had some disappointments. Were you really one of them? Suddenly you cannot stop yourself from sobbing, “I'm afraid I ruined his life!”

“Whoa there, hey now,” Julian soothes you, turning you in his arms to hold you while you break down all over again. “Those are some strong words there, sweetheart, come here.” He half leads you, half carries you to the edge of the bed, sitting you down and kneeling in front of you with your hands in his. “You can't put that on yourself. It was a long time ago.”

“But what if…I don’t know! My stupid fucking brain is so broken, I can’t remember!”

Julian sighs heavily, stroking your hands with his thumbs. He fights a small war inside, debating if he should come clean about something. “It is possible…that you were seeing someone, back then. I remember…”

Now his voice hitches, because he is afraid to unveil this thing he has kept close to his vest all this time, afraid it could change this precious thing between the two of you. But at the end of the day…Julian is a good man, and he gives you the truth at last.

“When I interviewed you before the surgery. I asked if you had a significant other. You said there was someone you loved. But…he never came to claim you. He never came to the hospital once, not before or after, and I…I didn’t think he deserved you, if he was out there somewhere. You needed someone to cherish you. Not someone who would only be there for you when you were healthy.” 

There is a rare thread of heat in his last words. Julian genuinely loves people, and he rarely speaks ill of anyone. He is the most compassionate man you know. But the fact that he kept this from you for all these years…

Your grip on his hands turns from tentative to crushing for a few seconds, before you pull away, horrified. His brilliant hands work miracles. You can't risk damaging them. “I'm sorry.”

“It’s ok.”

“I think that maybe he didn’t come…because I asked him not to.” It sounded like just the sort of brave ultimatum you might have made back in those days. You choke as you get out your next sentence, “And then…I think…I forgot about him.”

No wonder Nelson was so fucking furious with you. That man loved you so much that even after all these years he's still not over it. And then you think about that kiss. That kiss. A lock of lips filled with so much passion and rage and the familiarity in it melted your bones. There were parts of you that still remembered, even if your stupid brain has failed you. 

At a loss, you just shake your head, and Julian pulls you into a hug again. “Whatever happened, however it panned out…it wasn’t your fault, honey. You had a lot to deal with all at once, and sometimes things just slip by. It’s ok. Let’s get some sleep, alright? You’ll feel better in the morning.” 

But you are unable to fall asleep with your mind racing at three-hundred miles per second. You stare at the ceiling, miserable to the marrow of your bones. For the first time ever, Julian’s arm around you feels like an unbearable weight, not the warm shelter it always had been before. That makes you angry at yourself way more than him. 

Your brain is your own worst enemy, it seems. 

Knowing you will find no rest like this, you slip out from his sleeping grasp and grab your sweater and shoes. Maybe a walk around this little town will help you reason things out, and then you can get some sleep.

🌟🌙🌟

The second to last thing Nelson expected at ten to midnight was a knock on his door. The last thing he expected to find was you on the other side of it.

He leans against the portal feeling hollow as a rotted-out tree. He's got nothing left. No more anger. No more fight. 

Judging by your red-rimmed eyes and miserable expression, he guesses you haven't had a pleasant night either. 

This brings him no satisfaction now. 

“Y/n…I can't do this again.” He starts to close the door, until you block it with your foot. He almost smiles at that, the corner of his mouth ticking ever so slightly. There's the pushy girl he once knew. 

“Wait. I have a proposition for you.”

His eyebrows lift high to that. “I've heard that before.”

You narrow your eyes, thinking. A memory flits through your consciousness, something you can just barely put your finger down on. A bargain you once struck with this man, a lifetime ago. Words shouted in the rain. A water-soaked kiss that had curled your toes. An offer that hadn't been entirely altruistic, because deep down you'd wanted this man with a visceral appetite you were afraid to completely acknowledge. 

There was an argument, before that. A pithy trade of verbal blows…while you were sitting on the silver hood of a Mercedes. He’d looked devastating in black.

You blink at the rush of these jumbled memories, bracing yourself against the door jamb. 

“Are you alright?” he asks, oddly concerned.

“I'm fine. I want you to yell at me.”

“What?”

“Yell at me. Berate me. Get it all out. I clearly hurt you, even if I didn’t mean to. You will feel infinitely better afterwards, I promise.”

This idea came to you as you’d marched around the cobbled town square in the yellow lantern light. It had felt like the whole little town belonged to you, with no one else around. On your third lap of the plaza you devised that maybe this was the only way available to you, to maybe fix some of the damage you’d done to this man. 

However, Nelson looks at you like you’ve grown three heads. 

“You want to do an Airing of The Grievances?”

“Yes.”

“But it's not even Festivus.”

Your own lips twitch with a ghost of a smile for the Seinfeld reference. 

“Well, we can celebrate early.”

“You are still very strange.”

“Thank you. Can I come in? Or do you want to do this in the hall?”

“No, you may not.” His expression softens, if not only slightly. “I don't want to yell at you. I…loved you. I wanted to marry you.” Your lip quivers as he looks at you with a tenderness in those dark eyes that could bring you to your knees; it is the polar opposite of the man from before. Now, more than ever, you believe your instincts about him. 

“You…did?”

“Yeah. But that was a really long time ago, y/n. I'm sorry about how I acted, earlier. Go back to your doctor, and have a nice life.” He tries to close the door again, but this time something feral rises in you. You push through the door, knowing you are probably committing a misdemeanor–maybe a felony? But you don't care. Not when you are this close to getting some answers.

He doesn't look particularly alarmed by your invasion. More just…tired.

“Hmm. This feels familiar too.”

“Please…” you beg him, though you're not even sure what for. “I feel like…I'm losing my mind tonight. Or I guess…maybe I already did. But maybe…” You sit down on an ottoman, looking up at him with pleading eyes. “Maybe you could tell me…what happened?”

He looks at you like he is drowning, and in that moment you know you are being selfish, but maybe…you could both come out the other side of this with some well-needed closure?

“You just want to dredge all that up right now, huh?”

“I…” You second guess yourself, looking into his soulful black eyes. You lose yourself for several long moments, just looking at him. And yes, he is ridiculously handsome, but it’s so much more than that. He is precious to you, and there is something inside you that recognized that from the moment you first saw him tonight. And now you want to drag him across the coals all over again? “God. I’m sorry. Not if it will only hurt you more. Fuck.”

You stand to go, but he holds up a hand to you. Long fingered, strong, and somehow you're certain, very capable. You have feelings about his hands that a stranger absolutely shouldn’t, and maybe that clinches it for you.

“I'll tell you, if you really want to know. But it won't change anything.”

You nod, utterly unable to turn back from this trainwreck, and sit back down.

He runs his hand through his hair with a sigh, and that fascinates you too. 

“Fuuuck…do you want a drink?”

You think about that. Here you are, in a hotel room at midnight with a man who is both somehow an intimate acquaintance and a total stranger. What could go wrong? 

“Yeah. We probably better.”

“My thought exactly.”

TBC...

i'll be the one to break my heart - feist, i feel it all

III.

Five minutes later you are situated in the corner armchair with a generous glass of cabernet in hand, and Nelson is sitting on the bed with an identical libation. You get comfortable, shrugging out of your long sweater, and Nelson can't help but do a double take. “Are you in your pajamas?”

You look down at your lacy camisole and sleep pants. People wear far less in public in California all the time. “Um…yes?”

He shakes his head, but declines further comment. “Alright. Where do you want me to start?”

“The beginning, I guess.”

He smirks at you, and for some reason it gives you a forbidden thrill. “You realize I could paint this picture any way I want, right? It’s kind of my specialty.”

You hate to say it…but Julian never makes you feel this way. He never challenges your declarations or makes you defend your stance. You do not spar, playfully or in earnest. You rarely ever even argue. You feel like Nelson made a habit of that, and the push and pull had been exhilarating. You feel the inkling of that old thrill, and you find you are hungry to capture it again. 

You take a sip of wine, leveling him with a cool look. “I will warn you that maybe my memory is shot, but I have a strong bullshit detector.”

He looks at you with a warmth in his dark eyes that makes you tingle inside. Maybe…this is a bad idea. When you had the bright idea to sweettalk the concierge into giving you Nelson’s room number it strangely didn’t even occur to you that going to another man's hotel room in the middle of the night could be considered unfaithful to Julian, but this? 

Now you are walking a line, and you know it. 

“I guess that hasn't changed either.”

“Oh?”

“No. You've been calling me on my bullshit since the moment we met.”

“Hmm. How did that go for us?”

“At first I thought you were crazy.”

“I get that a lot,” you chortle.

“And then…I fell madly in love with you.” 

For some reason a weight lifts from his heart from just saying it aloud. Is this the acceptance part of grieving? 

And you? It's like a flurry of butterflies has been unleashed in your chest. You look at him, and you cannot stop looking at him, mesmerized. This is…not good. But you can’t stop now.

“Will you tell me about it?” you request quietly, as though you are whispering a secret to your wine.

“Well,” he says wryly, warming to his subject, resigned to playing his part in this impending disaster. That’s a familiar feeling too, from before. It’s your circus, and he supposes that despite his best efforts to resist, he is your monkey. “It all started where every decent love story begins…at the DMV.” 

🍇🍇🍇

As Nelson goes on his story of the two of you becomes more like a call and response session. With the right triggers the memories do start flooding back, though part of it might be your active imagination filling in the damaged portions of the canvas with his version of things.

He tells you about your little monthly projects, and you chuckle at yourself, even if you find it hard to believe you were ever so brazen as to think you could truly fix anyone. But he says you managed some good, even if he wryly teases you about it the whole time. “I think you traded training dogs for training men,” he needles you. 

“Well…most men badly need it,” you answer, only half joking. 

“Maybe. Apparently October was a grand success. You knocked him right out of his shell.” 

You think on that, and the memory of Thomas floats through your brain. He was the shy, sweet computer nerd who helped you launch your website with your sister, a lifetime ago. You remember…his earnest, dark puppy eyes…and wow, you marvel that you do seem to have a type. Maybe your little projects were not entirely so altruistic as you liked to tell yourself… 

“And you…were November?” 

He looks down into his wine glass, answering with a nod as though suddenly choked by his own memories of that month you spent together. 

The fragments come, and they keep coming. Your verbal dust-up in the parking lot of the DMV. A dognapping committed in his nice Mercedes. Chasing that man out into the pouring rain in a gamble to save his soul. Toe-curling kisses in a brightly painted apartment over Missouri Street, and lovemaking in your old brass bed that squeaked and bumped the wall while he made love to you…

Bubble baths together in the claw footed tub, and walks on the beach, and making him chase you around the apartment blindfolded to work on his awareness of his other senses…and to watch him trip over your furniture. 

Sometimes you do have a wicked sense of humor. 

He tells you everything, and you listen with bated breath until the end. “You…really wanted to marry me?” Neither of your eyes are dry as you ask this. 

He nods.

“What did I say?”

“It got…complicated.”

“Because I was sick?”

He nods again, looking into his dwindling wine glass. 

“What did I say?” you demand again. You're afraid to know…but you've come this far now. 

“You…wanted me to remember you as you were. I wanted to stay with you to the end, but…you sent me away.”

You nod, tears rolling now. “That sounds like something stupid I would do.”

He gestures at you up and down. “Obviously…it worked out for you.”

“After my surgery…since the moment I woke up…I knew I was missing something. I just couldn’t remember. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!”

“Don’t be, y/n. I was a coward. I should have come to find you.” He doesn't have to say aloud that he’d thought he would be looking for your grave.

“Nelson…”

“It’s ok, y/n.” It’s really not…but he can't do anything but try to comfort you. 

“So what…do we do now?” you ask, afraid of the answer. 

“The only thing we can do, honey. I'll go back to my life, and you to yours.” He dies a little inside with every word of this statement that leaves his mouth. 

“Just like that?”

“What else would you propose? It's been ten years, y/n. And I hate to tell you this…but you wouldn't even like the man I am now.”

“You don't seem so bad.”

He snorts at that. “I take it all back. You do have questionable judgement.”

“I have singular taste.”

“Yeah? What would your handsome doctor say about that?”

“He would agree.”

“Do you love him?”

“Yes.”

“Then that should be your answer.”

“He lied to me.”

“About what?”

“You. I told him…there was someone. Before the surgery. He declined to mention it, when I forgot afterwards.”

Nelson looks you up and down in a way that is not platonic, a heat simmering in his eyes that makes you press your thighs. “Frankly? I can't even blame the bastard. Even if I'm pretty sure that's got to be some kind of gross violation of the Hippocratic oath. Is he good to you?”

“Yes.”

“Then stick with him. Because believe me, you don't want anything to do with this. I'm grouchy and bitter and absorbed by my work again at MoHolland. You told me once that I was the biggest asshole you'd ever met. You were right.”

“I'm afraid…it's all my fault, somehow.”

“That I reverted back to my true self?”

“I failed you.”

“By developing a brain tumor?”

“Would you just stop?!” You've started to cry again. You can't help it. It's all too much, and it's all so painfully vivid now, and you don't know what to do. 

“Baby…” He holds out his arms to you, pure instinct without really thinking about what it could mean. You're not really thinking either though, when you clamber up into the bed, crawling into his arms. When you curl up with your head on his chest like two long-lost puzzle pieces finally fitted back together the water works really begin. 

“Please don't cry,” he begs the top of your head. “You're okay. You've got your life back. Your health. You have a man who loves you. Shit, you have two men that love you. Probably even more than that all over this damn place, that’s kinda your M.O. What else do you need…?”

You sit up on his chest to regard him from so close, tangled up in his long legs in a way that feels like home to you while he strokes your hair, trying to soothe you.

“Where do you think we would be right now, if things hadn’t gotten so fucked?”

“I don't know,” he sighs. “But I think…we would have made it. You’re that stubborn, and I…I loved you that much.”

The thought that he could have so much retrospective faith in your lasting power, despite all his cynicism, says so much to you, and your lip quivers again. You reach up to stroke the soft scruff of his beard, and his eyes close for your touch. He’s a starving man who didn’t even know it until now, with a full feast laid out in front of him.  “Y/n…” he warns you, though it comes out like a sigh. 

“Look at all this on your face. No wonder I didn’t recognize you.” 

“You don’t like it?”

“I love it. You have no business looking this hot. How dare you?” 

This makes him laugh out loud, a sound filled with unbridled joy and heartbreak in equal measure. He takes care with his appearance, though these days it’s more a matter of disguise than vanity. Hearing your approval fills him with an unexpected warmth that blooms through his chest to his toes. 

“I find you equally alluring, I assure you.” You shrug it off, even as that kindling warmth spreads through your bones.

“You must have women clawing down your door,” you muse, daring to curl a lock of his cloud-soft hair around your finger, but he just shakes his head sadly. 

“You’re the only woman I wanted, y/n, and I thought you were dead. And now that I actually have you in my arms again…I feel like I should kick you out of here, before this really gets messy.”  Contradictorily, his hold tightens upon you as he says this. He is telling his hands to stop what they’re doing immediately, tracing the curve of your waist and the soft skin of the back of your arm—but they’re just not listening. 

“It doesn’t feel like you want to let me go, Nelson.” 

With the love of his life miraculously back in his arms again? He’s only a man. 

“No. It does not.”

With a sigh you rest your head back on his shoulder, and the two of you lay curled up against the headboard together for what somehow feels like an eternity and the blink of an eye. You know that you should move…but you can’t. You just can’t, and your eyes fill with tears again. 

Nelson reaches up to wipe the moisture off your cheek, ignoring the wetness that’s dampened his own beard. “Honey…you gotta cut it out. It’s okay.” 

“Is it?” 

Strangely…for the first time in a long time…he actually feels like it is. “Yeah.” 

“How?”

“Because…you were right. I do feel a lot better now, knowing you’re alive, and well, and you didn’t play me like a fucking sucker. You’ve got a good man who’s going to take care of you. And I…I’m going to be okay.” 

He finds he actually believes that, and it’s like a fifty-ton weight has finally lifted from his chest. He laughs, and even if it’s a broken sound, it is genuine. 

You, however, are not half so convinced. “You’re going to be okay, alone?” 

He sniffs, unable to stop himself from kissing the top of your head. “Yeah. I’m used to it, baby. I’ll be fine.” 

You sit up to look at him again, that lump lodged once more in the back of your throat. “You’re scared. Of us. Of trying again.” 

You always could see right to the heart of him. 

The first time the two of you did this nearly killed him, and opening himself up the way he did for you back then…it took a lot to put all that back again, just as a matter of survival. 

“You’re damn right I am.” 

Once, you might have chided him for that. Challenged him. Called him a coward. But maybe you’re a little older and wiser now, because you understand all too well. 

“If I didn’t have Julian, would you feel this way?”

He thinks on that. Grinds his teeth. Shrugs. “I’ll tell you one thing. If I was the good doctor, I would not be happy about you being here in my arms.” 

“That wasn’t my question.” 

“Of course it wasn’t,” he huffs, laughing despite himself. 

“Well?” 

“You know, you really haven’t mellowed with age.” 

“I’m not a cheese, Nelson.” 

Definitely not, he agrees silently. You are the headiest liquor, and he is a man on the wagon dying for one more taste, even if it kills him. 

The rumble of mirth that trembles through his chest beneath you is like a balm for your soul. When was the last time he laughed like this? You suspect it’s been a while for this man, and he marvels that you are still like his little miracle drug, the only thing that gets through his hard, idiotic shell.

“What’s wrong with cheese?” he teases. “Cheese is delicious.” Why is he looking at your mouth while he says this? He really is losing his goddamn mind. Is this sleep deprivation? What was in that wine?

You make a face, which only makes him chuckle more. He’s so beautiful when he laughs, his eyes shining like high-polished mahogany. It moves you to the bottom of your soul, and you admit that you are the one who closes that distance between you, pressing your mouth to his.

TBC...

lay here, my love, you're the only shape I'll pray to... -Iron & Wine, Jezebel

IV.

This kiss is like the first life-giving breath of spring, things long dead in Nelson’s heart sprouting into bloom. For the next few minutes he is helpless to anything but pursuing one more taste of you, your tongue sliding against his as his strong hands roam the curve of your spine.

Intoxicated by the moment and the memory, he slides his hand into your pants, cupping the bare round of your ass in what he always considered a perfect handful. 

But when you make a small sound of surprise he quickly retreats up to the small of your back, realizing what he’s done. It reminds him of the first night you spent together, when you scolded him to slow down. This is different…but maybe also the same, because there is a hole inside his soul that he so badly wants to fill with you.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” 

How is this even happening right now? He keeps waiting to wake from this fevered dream, plunged back into the reality in which you are really gone, and he is all alone again. 

He blinks as the two of you look at each other from so close, desire raging through your veins. It’s more than that, though. Once the nuance eluded him, but he’s never understood more perfectly the difference between lust, and need, as he does right now. The absolute urgency to be lovingly consumed. You were the first woman to teach him this lesson, and now you’re the first to remind him in a very long time. A moment later he’s rolled on top of you, his delicious weight pressing you into the mattress as he kisses you deeply, and slowly, devouring you from the mouth down.  

“Alright,” he growls as he trails languid kisses down your neck. “Now we’re really crossing a line.” 

“Yeah…” You know he’s right, and you feel bad about it. You really do. But you also feel…like you’ve been starved of oxygen for years, and this is the first real breath you’ve been allowed to take in a decade. 

“This is definitely cheating on the doctor, so we’re clear.” 

“Or…have I been cheating on you all this time with the doctor?” 

This earns you a little growl and a nip on your neck that makes you squeal. “That is not helping,” he grinds out against the tender hollow of your throat. “Though I like the way you think.” 

You sigh, running your fingers through his silky-soft hair. “It’s…not right though,” you reluctantly admit.  

“Yeah,” he agrees against the soft swell of your breast, kissing you with a heartbreaking tenderness, drifting down…then forcing himself back up again, brushing lips across your sternum. “We really shouldn’t be doing this.” 

You can hardly believe your ears, and you look up at him stupidly, blinking the stars from your eyes. “Wow.” 

“Well…as much as I hate him…the doctor did save your life. So I owe him for that.” 

“Wow.”

“Yeah.” 

“That doesn’t sound like something a total asshole would say.” 

One night in your company, and he’s already a better man again. 

“You’re already rubbing off on me.”   

With your leg wrapped around his, and the bulge of his rock hard manhood pressed against your center…you could make a smart comment about that. But you don’t. Because he’s right. Jesus, what are you, a cat in heat? Of course he’s right.

So what if you think you can remember what it’s like to be ruined by his thick length inside you, stuffed full while he looks straight into your soul? So what, if you’re afraid there’s a part of you that would give anything to have that intimacy with him again? 

“Okay,” you pant, nodding. “Then you have to get off of me.” 

He looks down at you appraisingly with his disheveled dark hair in his eyes, a look that sets your every nerve on fire, your nipples tightening to painful points. “Yeah. I should.” But he punctuates this with falling upon you again, stealing every last iota of good sense you ever had with a wet kiss that makes you moan and squirm against him, desperate for friction, for relief, for him. 

You whine in frustration when he pulls back again.

“Okay. I mean it this time. C’mon.” 

But you are still pinned beneath him, of course, in this nest of covers on this soft mattress…it somehow feels like the most righteous and the worst thing you’ve ever done. “Fuck,” he snarls, and then he does get up, stalking across to the bathroom and shutting the door, even locking it for good measure as though you might chase him down and break in.

Ok…maybe boundaries have never been your strong suit. 

You know he was right…then why did it hurt so much? Slowly you manage to sit up, and swing your legs around to the edge of the bed…your knees are like jell-o when you manage to stand. 

When Nelson dares to exit the bathroom ten minutes later you are sitting in the corner chair, wrapped up in your sweater and tying your shoes for something to do. By the exasperated look he gives you, you reckon he’d hoped you would let yourself out, but you couldn’t just yet. 

If this was goodbye…you had to do it properly this one last time. 

You stand to meet him in the center of the room. “Well, y/n…it’s been interesting, as always.” He holds out his hand to you to shake like you’ve done a business deal, and you nearly roll your eyes out of your head. 

“You are such an ass,” you tell him, throwing your arms around his neck in a hug that breaks his heart all over again. But he takes his licks like a man, wrapping his arms around your ribcage and picking you up a little from the floor. He allows himself one last kiss on your cheek–or more like your ear. He doesn’t know. Just nowhere near your mouth, or else he knows he’ll lose his nerve all over again. 

He feels the slow creep of winter frost ready to claim his heart again, but somehow he stays his course. 

“Have a nice life, y/n.” 

“You too, Nelson Moss.” He smiles ruefully at that, and as you go for the doorknob you miss it at first, your hand is shaking so badly, a bone-deep tremor that has spread through your limbs. You’re not sure if this is the best thing to do…but it is the right thing to do. That much you know. 

Imagine your surprise when you open the door to find Dr. Julian Mercer standing there with his hand raised, as though poised to knock.

TBC...

V.

“Julian…?” you exclaim breathily, your heart hammering in your chest. 

“Hi, y/n.” He peers past you to take in Nelson, perhaps relieved to see he is fully clothed in a black oversized t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. Not exactly what one would consider sexy sleeping attire, or at least as far as he knows. “I was worried, when I woke up and you were gone. I thought…you might be here.” The desk clerk is surely wondering what on earth is going on in this room. 

Nelson lifts an eyebrow. “She sleepwalks, you know. I would advise you to invest in a good sturdy leash.”

Julian’s eyebrows raise at that, and you emit a long-suffering sigh. Is this his idea of making this easier for you? “Nelson here has a very unfortunate sense of humor.” 

“I see. Is that…why you’re in his room at two in the morning?” 

You absolutely deserve that question. But before you can come clean with the whole truth Nelson answers for you, “We were just talking about old times. Nothing more, doctor.” 

Julian nods thoughtfully, looking to you for your two cents, you suppose. You nod in agreement, feeling absolutely wretched all the while. Julian can play this two ways. He can take your word…or he can question the slight redness around your mouth, the evidence of light dermabrasion, strikingly similar to what happens when the two of you make out in the morning before he’s shaved.   

“I hope…that cleared some things up for the two of you?” 

Neither Nelson nor you have the heart to answer that. You both simply nod, and that seems answer enough for Julian at this ungodly hour of the morning. “Okay, sweetheart. Are you coming to bed?” 

“Yes. Goodnight, Nelson.” 

“Goodnight, y/n.” Something twists in knots in his belly, because he knows what those words actually mean is goodbye. 

🍷🍷🍷

Much to his own personal amazement, Nelson doesn’t duck out on the wedding the next day. He finds himself seated way back in the back like the familial pariah he is, vaguely listening to the wedding vows on this gorgeous fall day in Napa. 

But really what he’s looking at is up ahead four rows, Dr. Mercer’s arm slung around your bare shoulders. 

You look beautiful. Even more lovely than the bride, in his personal opinion, though maybe he’s somewhat biased. 

He went to sleep wondering if he would regret letting you go, but so far the sadness has maintained at a bearable weight upon his shoulders. 

Of course he wants you. 

But he tells himself it’s better for everyone, his not having you. 

He tells himself, but he knows deep down, he’s not entirely convinced. 

Is it something he can live with? Now he's not sure. It seemed like the best course of action last night. The easiest. The least terrifying. He only felt moderately sick about it upon waking, which really wasn’t much different from his usual baseline in life anyway. 

But now, watching you, with him…he starts to feel the churning of an old restlessness inside. Something he's not entirely sure he can control, if it manages to bubble up to the surface. He recognizes that old feeling that his world is crumbling, and there's nothing he can do to stop it.

Finally, the long-winded officiant gets on with declaring man and wife and his cousin gets to kiss his new bride. 

How nice. At least someone is getting the girl of his dreams. 

🍇☀️🌿

As the reception gets underway you find yourself sitting alone on the sidelines. Julian got up to get you drinks, and now he’s waylaid by talking to someone in the crowd. He’s such a people person, the consummate hail fellow well met, and you don’t mind. It gives you some time to think on your own. 

“Are you mad?” you’d asked him the night before, as you’d returned to your room.

Amazingly, he’d answered, “No. Are you alright?” 

“Yeah.” Or at least…you thought you were going to be. You left the last part out, but you think he heard it anyway. He was so good at hearing what a patient is saying outloud, and the quiet parts too. 

He’s been perfectly cordial, but something has still been off between the two of you since last night. You can sense it, and you don’t know if time will iron it out, or if something has been permanently broken. 

You’re dealing with a lot of unknowns this weekend, and you are exhausted. 

Across the tent, you see you are not the only one sitting by your lonesome. Nelson occupies a table all by himself, watching the dancefloor with a rather sage expression of good-natured acceptance, if you don’t say so yourself. He looks so handsome in a dark blue suit and tie, and you find yourself daydreaming about what it would be like to adjust the fold of his pocket square just so as an excuse to touch him. 

You don’t mean to meet his eyes across the tent, but once you do…you can’t look away. And then your feet are moving, and somehow you are suddenly seated next to him. “Hi.”

“Hi.” 

“You looked lonely.” 

“So did you.” 

You shrug, looking over at Julian in his smart grey suit, laughing with one of the groomsmen about something. He’s also so handsome it hurts, and you marvel at your luck. Fate? Gifts the universe has bestowed for some inexplicable reason? Because there’s nothing that special about you, as far as you know. 

Amazingly, the silence that stretches between you isn’t that awkward. Companionable. Like the dust that settles after a storm. You’re surprised when Nelson turns to you with a gleam in his eye you could no more resist than a junkie her favourite fix. “Do you want to dance?” 

What could be the harm in that? 

It’s perfectly innocent. 

It’s not like being in his arms again will make you die a little more inside?

“Okay.” 

You’re no prodigy, but Nelson is a strong lead, and you do your best to follow his cues in your little space together on the edge of the dancefloor. This calls up more vague memories for you, of being in his arms, twirled and pulled in perfect time to the music that is so loud you can barely hear each other, much less your own thoughts.

Maybe that’s a relief.  

“You’re still terrible at this,” he teases you when you step on his foot for the third time. 

“I’m just…distracted.” 

Understanding too well, he pulls you closer, his cheek pressed to yours.

You hate to admit that you’re both transported to your own little world like this, completely unaware of the eyes upon you. In fact, as many people seem to marvel at you two as the bride and groom, the family flabbergasted to see the famously grouchy Nelson actually seeming to be enjoying himself for once. You should quit the floor when a slower number begins to play, but it’s so easy to let Nelson fold you close against his chest, and the two of you sway together like you are adrift in the waves, the flotsam left over from the ship that was your love, now busted to pieces on the rocks of life. 

That lump returns with a vengeance in the back of your throat, and you sidle just a little closer, as though you can hide from the world in the warm shelter under his chin. 

As the song comes to a close he looks down at you with a tenderness in his eyes that slays you all over again. “Nelson…”

He is looking at your mouth when he answers, “No.”

“But…”

“We gotta call it,” he says in your ear as the next number starts. “Didn’t the Victorians believe if you danced three sets together you were automatically engaged?”

You laugh at that, a broken little sound, knowing it’s nonsense and that he knows it’s nonsense. “That sounds more like a Regency thing to me,” you answer, and even though you don’t really want to, you let him walk you off the floor. 

You’re not really paying attention, until Nelson delivers you back to Julian’s side. One look, and you realize your beau saw it all, and maybe read all the subtext between the lines too. 

“I warned you, this one needs a leash,” Nelson just can’t help himself, taunting the doctor all while handing you over. It’s harder than it should be. He could just…take you with him, and see what happens then? The temptation is all too real. 

“Believe me, I’m considering it,” Julian answers with an incline of his head and his arm fitted possessively around your waist, a momentary look in his eye that suggests he actually means it. Your sweet fiancé usually keeps his caveman instincts so well tamped below the surface that you are shocked into momentary silence by this display.  

You consider smacking them both, but there is a sudden tension between them you are wary of pushing one way or the other. There is a new edge to Nelson’s smile; it’s more like a baring of teeth, and it’s ridiculous, but god does it give you a forbidden thrill. 

“I know I owe you my thanks for saving her life,” says Nelson through gritted teeth. 

“You’re welcome. Not that I did it for you.” 

“Yeah. I think I also owe you this.” 

It was temporary madness, Nelson will think later, brought on from seeing you in another man's arms. It was like he was watching someone else from outside his body. He didn't have control of his hand, when it balled into a fist at his side, and then found its way rocketing towards the good doctor’s face.

Julian falls back, into a table filled with drinks.

Nelson regrets it immediately.

Not because of the screams or the chaos of the kerfuffle, but for the look of horror on your face.

Before you can tell him off Nelson disappears into the crowd. You can’t see it through the throng, but he decides this is enough masochism for one afternoon, and he retreats down the hill to the shuttle back to the hotel. 

You deserve better than him, and it’s time to go the fuck home. 

Yet the farther he gets from you, the more he feels like he has left his truest home behind. It manifests as actual, physical pain in his chest, and for a moment he wonders if he’s having a heart attack.  

Still, he makes himself go. It’s for the best, for all of you. 

Maybe that thought will keep him warm at night. 

Somehow…he doubts it. 

🌄🌄🌄 

“I’m sorry,” you say to Julian, feeling miserable as the two of you are back at the hotel, and you're handing him a fresh ice pack.

“For what?”

“For…everything. For dancing with him. I can't believe he hit you!”

Actually…the more you think about it…maybe you can.

“It was just a dance,” he excuses, looking into your eyes. “Wasn’t it?” 

You open your mouth, then close it again, like a fish out of water. 

“I realize this has been a trying weekend for you…” Julian observes, jutting his lower teeth in a gesture of irritation you rarely see from him. “I have to admit I’m feeling…like maybe I took something that didn’t belong to me.” 

Watching the two of you together solidified that conclusion for him, and he just can’t shake it. 

“Oh Julian…I’m sorry. It’s not like that.” You’re not really sure what it is like though. “ I love you. You saved me.” 

“Of course I did. I would have done that anyway, though. At the end of the day, the truth is I lied to you…or at least, I omitted the truth…because I wanted you, y/n. You were so funny and bright and brave while you were staring death right in the eye. I fell in love. But I think part of your strength came from your determination to see that man again. I heard it in your voice, when you talked about him, and I robbed you of that chance. I made an oath to do no harm…and I think I broke it. It was selfish of me.”

“I don’t blame you for it, Julian. We had a connection too. That's not something to scoff at.”

“That’s nice of you. But I think…you’re still very much in love with him.” 

You don’t have the strength to lie to him, even if maybe you should. “Maybe. But I’m in love with you too. Where does that leave us?” 

He nods, and pulls you close with his arm around your shoulder, comforting you to the last. “We’ll figure it out, honey. Let’s enjoy the rest of the evening.”

You do your best, but your heart’s not in it, and you know that Julian knows too.

TBC...

VI. 

You and Julian never really recover from that long weekend in Napa. 

Like a weak spot in a piece of metal, the discoveries of those two days bend your relationship back and forth over the course of the next few months until finally, it breaks. 

Julian carries the guilt of that first deception at the very beginning of your relationship, the corruption of his oath as a physician, and it eats him up inside. You carry the guilt of how you felt in Nelson’s arms, and how late at night when you’re curled up beside Julian you still think about what it was like to kiss Nelson…and you crave it.

The split is sorrowful, but amicable. 

Or at least, as amicable as these things can ever be. 

🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙🏙   

At the end of a long day Nelson is exiting his office building to the garage, muttering his latest tagline under his breath. 

He isn’t really paying attention until he’s right up next to his car, when he sees a pair of boots resting on the bumper of his ninety-thousand dollar Porsche. 

“I have a proposition for you.” 

His lips twist in resistance, but in the end he loses the battle against his mouth curling in a smile. 

He’d be a liar if he said he didn’t fantasize about this moment a lot. A serendipitous meeting with you. A second [third? fourth?] chance. Maybe this time he could manage not to fuck it up? He knew he stepped over the line when he hit Julian. He even felt guilty about it, and he’d been astounded when weeks and weeks went by without being served papers for a lawsuit. 

His heart is in his throat when he makes the decision to engage. 

“I know better about making a comment about a dent in my hood now.” 

“Smart man.” 

He follows the line from your boots to your crossed legs, your brightly printed skirt to your knit top you probably made yourself, to eventually, your smugly smiling face. God, how he missed you.

“To what do I owe this pleasure?” 

“I’m homeless,” you pout theatrically. 

“How sad for you.” 

“I was thinking…” 

“God help us all.” 

“That we should try being roommates. Just for the month of June.” 

“Ooooh, that’s a busy month. Wedding season, you know.”

“Hmm. Is that a fact?” 

“Statistical.”  

“You make a habit of attending a lot of weddings?”

“Well, it's where I meet the most interesting people. Sometimes I even fight them.”

“Really?”

“Uh huh. How’s the good doctor, y/n?”

“We have gone our separate ways. Amiably.”

“How civilized.”

“I suppose.”

“And now…you've opted to come terrorize me?”

You didn't see the point of finding a new place, when you knew exactly where you were headed next.

“Well…I got the impression you kind of like it.”

“There might be some truth in that,” he says warmly. “But I can't quit my job to live in a whimsical squat with you for a month this time.”

“Oh, I was going to introduce you to yurt-living this round!” you tease gleefully, clapping your hands.

“Very funny.”

“Who's joking?”

“Hmm. It feels like we're in a negotiation, Ms. y/n.”

“Do you have a counter?”

He sidles closer, until his legs are nearly touching yours.

“I propose…” Something inside you purrs as he leans over you on the hood of the car, those pillars for arms planted on either side of you. “That I take you on a three week vacation to a destination of your choice, where we will drink well, eat well, and fuck like rabbits until such time as either party dies of happiness or we become sick of each other.”

Your eyes go wide at hearing this, but you cannot suppress a joyful smile. “Agreed, but with the option to extend the duration of the contract, should both parties see fit.”

“You want a job in our legal department, sweetheart?”

“Not on your life.”

“Hmm. Sounds like we have a deal then.” 

Before you can say anything else he is on you, kissing you like the air he needs to live, pressing you down into the hood of the car. You meet his passion with equal enthusiasm, throwing your arms around his neck to hold him to you. God, you have missed this man. But when you hear the sheet metal of the bonnet crunch beneath you, you can't help but gasp, certain he will be furious about his dented car.

He pulls back to look with eyebrows raised, and you brace yourself for that magnificent temper to rear its head, ready to do battle. 

You were afraid you were going to have to have a talk about this car.

He could have pushed you off the hood with a feather when he shrugs and smirks down at you. “That will buff out.”

“Sorry.”

“Worth it.” Then he kisses you again, and with this man's soft lips on yours you cannot shake the feeling that everything has been put right in your world again. 

🌄🌄🌄

“So what’s with this car, Nelson?” you tease him, looking around at the luxury interior–you hate to admit that the leather seats are rather nice. As you’ve aged and cheated death and so far continue to do so, you do enjoy some creature comforts that money can buy. 

“That didn’t take long,” he fires back, though he is smiling like he is pleased to be meeting an old adversary on the battlefield once again. “I think you’d actually be proud of me, sweetheart.” 

“Why is that?” 

“Because, this car is not about the status,” he explains. “This is a machine for speed. I enjoy it. It’s a hobby. I seem to remember someone telling me I should get some of those.”

That is your first inkling that maybe some of your lessons stuck, or at least he was managing to find some middle ground between work and life. That fills you with an unexpected warmth, and you realize that maybe there was a part of you that dreaded discovering how far he’d regressed to his old ways, by his own admission. 

“Well isn’t that something. I’m proud of you.” 

“Yeah? Shall we use it to commit a random dognapping on the way home, for old time’s sake?” he suggests glibly. 

“That wasn’t random,” you ripost, smiling despite yourself. “That was a rescue.” 

“Hmm, I see. Then what is this?” he asks, clearly meaning the two of you, together again. 

You take his hand in between shifting the gears, pressing your lips to his fingers. “Fate?” 

He can hardly take his eyes off of you for the rest of the drive, which is a real problem in L.A. traffic. He’d moved south after losing you the first time. The Bay Area just held too many memories for him, and it was eating him alive. 

He takes you through the winding roads up into the Hills, to a fairly modest house (by L.A. standards) tucked back amongst a stand of trees, a modern structure cantilevered on the hillside. He pulls into the garage, and you notice a motorcycle parked in the second bay. It seems he really has taken up some hobbies. 

Fast, dangerous ones.

You wonder if there’s something telling in that choice. You hope he just enjoys it, and doesn’t feel like he has nothing to lose. 

“I’m afraid…I’m living in a box again,” he says sheepishly, as though to head off your next round of pronouncements. 

“That’s ok,” you tell him, kissing his fingers again. After how everything turned out, you don’t really feel like you have the right to nitpick anything.  “I’m not actually here to judge you, Nelson.”

“No? Where is my charming little dominatrix in homemade sweaters?” he ribs you, and you sigh. 

“I don't really feel qualified to tell anyone what to do, these days.”

“That's a shame. Because you gave good advice. Even if you didn't quite have your own shit together.” Somehow he says all this with a fond smile, and it feels like forgiveness. 

“Ok, fine then. I'm not here to judge you today.” He laughs aloud at that, and the sound is a balm for your soul. 

“There she is.” Your heart nearly flutters out of your chest when he leans across the car to capture your lips again. At first it is a sweet, soft press of lips– but it grows into a heady, needy kiss that leaves you with stars in your eyes when he pulls back to rest his forehead against yours. 

“How is this happening?” he asks, of himself as much as you. “Why aren't you living happily ever after with dreamboat doctor boy?”

You laugh a little at his accurate approximation of Julian, but it’s a broken sound. “Because…my heart’s been here with you all along.” 

“Sweetheart…” He kisses you again before reaching for the door handle. “C’mon. I’ll give you the grand tour.” You get the feeling he’s being ironic somehow, and you follow him with your hand in his. 

You understand when you walk inside. It's all right there, most of the house practically one room, the open plan combining the kitchen, dining room, and living room all together. The whole back of the house is one big bank of windows with a view of L.A. glittering below. 

It's breathtaking. 

“Look at all the life down there…” you marvel with a strange sense of deja vu. “Isn’t it wonderful?” 

“Yeah,” he answers quietly. “That’s exactly what I thought, when I bought the place.” 

You look around, curious, and find the decor inside is inviting, not the gray-toned edgy masculine design out of a magazine you expected somehow. You’re surprised when you find you like it. He stands quietly, letting you look around without badgering you, watching you with those soulful dark eyes like he’s waiting for an axe to drop. 

He can't shake the feeling that you might change your mind about him at any moment, and even if it hasn't even been an hour, he’s not sure he can take losing you one more time.

A photo on a side table catches your eye, and you pick it up to examine it, finding Nelson with his arm around the shoulders of a young man in graduation robes. His youthful face looks so familiar. “Do you remember Abner?” asks Nelson quietly. 

It’s like filling a cup, the way the memory spills into the available space in your brain. That sweet little boy who had no father, always played on the street, and liked to hide behind a ski cap. Slowly you nod.   

“He’s at Berkeley for Naval Architecture. Wants to build boats,” Nelson says with a small smile, remembering that fateful toy sailboat race the two of you attended at the marina that one day, when Nelson sweetly sabotaged the other contestants who’d been bullying Abner with a bribe to a hobby submariner.

“That’s wonderful,” you say, touching his face in the frame. Abner grew into a fine young man, as tall as Nelson, grinning like the world is his oyster. “Is he happy?” 

“I think so.” 

“You’re in contact?” 

“Yeah. I…I’m helping him pay for school,” he admits rather sheepishly, not wanting to brag because it’s not the point, but still somehow hopeful that maybe you’ll take some mercy on him. “I’m sure he’d love to see you. I know he missed you, when…” 

When you supposedly died. 

You choke on a sudden wave of emotion, your eyes spilling over as you guiltily think about what that must have been like for that little boy. “Oh, Nelson…I’m so sorry!”

“Hey now…” he soothes you, wrapping you up in his arms. “It’s ok. You didn’t know…I’m guessing your family didn’t either. They weren’t a part of your life at that time, right? They couldn’t fill you in on what they didn’t know?” 

You think about how your family disapproved of your Bohemian lifestyle, and you’re not sure they would have filled you in even if they did know about your tribe of found family on Missouri street. But then…shouldn’t you have asked? 

“I should have…figured it out somehow. I’m so sorry.”

“I’m sure it was hard for you, recovering from all that,” Nelson excuses you, kissing the top of your head. “Brain surgery is kind of a big deal.” 

“It was a lot,” you admit. “It took a long time…to get my energy back.” It’s still not what it was, and it probably never will be, you hate to admit. “But ten years is a long time. I should have chased down the missing pieces, instead of just letting them go. I ghosted everyone and that’s such a shitty thing to do.”

You can’t just pop back into people’s lives after that, expecting things to be the same. It breaks trust. It makes people think they meant nothing to you, even if it’s not the case at all. 

“It’s not like you did it on purpose. That’s just…how it panned out, honey. That’s life, sometimes.”  

But you still feel miserable about it all. You’d genuinely loved that little boy. Who else did you up and disappear on? You look down, unable to meet those onyx orbs that somehow seem to see right through you. 

Not having it, Nelson cups your face in his hands, lifting your gaze back to his. “The people who truly loved you will forgive you, y/n. And I think…that's probably everyone you've ever met.”

“Nelson…do you forgive me?”

“Yes. I forgave you the night you broke into my hotel room. Or, I just surrendered,” he ribs you with a smirk, angling to make you feel better. “It’s hard to tell the difference with you, sometimes.”

Damn if it doesn’t work. You offer him a watery smile, slightly less miserable, but still so contrite.

“I’m sorry.”

“Alright, new rule. You’re not allowed to say sorry anymore. At least, for that particular thing. Ok?” 

Your answer is an exasperated little growl against his chest, and he smiles for it, squeezing you harder. “How about…we look forward, instead of driving ourselves insane looking back?”    

“That’s…entirely too constructive,” you grumble. “Who are you again?” 

He laughs. “I deserve that, I guess.” 

“Seriously though…do you think we can?” 

“I’m willing to try, if you are.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Well. I’ve tried living without you all these years, and I really did not like it. So I'm finding I’m open to option two.” 

“Okay.” 

“A month is not going to be enough, you know,” he warns you lovingly, grumbling into your hair. 

“Agreed,” you sigh, holding him tighter. You really weren’t sure how he’d take you showing up in his life out of the blue again–but it’s looking good. Maybe better than you deserve. He’d told you he’d reverted back to his old ways, but as far as you can tell, he found a rather good compromise between the man he was, and the man you made him that halcyon month in November. 

🍝🍷🍷

He makes you pasta for dinner, and you sit at the island and marvel at the view. The cityscape from up high is nice, but your attention is fixed on him. His every movement is like poetry to you, and you drink it all up. It might even be creepy, the way you stare, but he keeps shooting you warm looks in between chopping and stirring and you don’t know how your heart even fits in your chest right now. 

“I like your painting,” you say, pointing with your chin at the oil on canvas on the wall. The subject is a woman looking out over Golden Gate Park at sunset. 

“I bought it at a street fair years ago,” he admits. “It reminded me of you.” 

Narrowing your eyes, you get up to examine the signature, and laugh a little to yourself in disbelief. “I think…it is me, Nelson.” The memory of sitting for the sketches is a vague cirrus cloud that wisps through your memory. A smiling face and hands always stained with paint, however, comes a little more clearly. “This is my friend Marco.” You point at the messy handwriting in the bottom right corner, and it wins you a massive roll of eyes, though your beau is smiling about it too. 

“Of course it is. Are there any starving artists in San Francisco that you don’t know?” 

You shrug, declining to point out the obvious because it saddens you: you don’t know them, anymore. You’re really going to need to make a list. Or maybe you need a wall. You’re going to end up like that meme of Charlie Day.

Then another name manifests for you, and the memory of his face in your mind’s eye is like a knife to the chest. Your friend, your dear friend, who took such good care of you. “How is…Chaz?” 

Nelson smiles wryly, though all you can remember at the moment is his extreme annoyance with your downstairs neighbor. “Still kicking my ass professionally at Watley Bohannon. He beat me out on a big contract last month, the bastard.” 

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. The boss was not pleased. He’s a cranky workaholic who’s never taken a vacation since he started the MoHolland Agency.”

“Hmm. Want me to give him a talk?”

“I think you should. Maybe over a margarita, or whatever we’re drinking on our three week sojourn.”

You narrow your eyes as you work this one out. Brain fog is a real problem for you, but you think he’s speaking in riddles. “Nelson…do you own MoHolland Advertising Solutions?”

“Yeah. With my friend Vince.” He seems like he might be bracing himself for an opinion on that. 

“Is he the one…who couldn't remember his date’s name? At the ice cream parlor?”

“Ahhhh…yeah. He's gotten better about that.”

“One would hope.” You think about what he told you. “Wow. Your own agency. That's a big deal.”

“Thanks.” But he looks at you through his hair like he's hiding, like he's waiting for the other shoe to drop. It tears you up inside all over again. He's a successful businessman. But he's actually using his money to pay for good things, like tuition and hobbies that bring him some solace and joy in life. It's not like before, where the goal was just the money for the sake of the status and power of it.

“I'm proud of you,” you say again, and you mean it. 

This makes Nelson smile across the counter at you, and it's like a sunset in your heart. “Are you?”

“I really am.”

“That means more to me than you can possibly know.”

You share a simple but delicious meal out on the deck overlooking the city, a warm breeze whispering against your skin as you hold hands across the table while you eat. The warmth in Nelson’s shining dark eyes utterly curls your toes in your sandals. You talk in hushed tones, and you share companionable silence, touching under or over the table all the while. It’s as though you’re both afraid the other might disappear in a wisp of smoke if you lose that physical line of contact; this all feels like a dream that’s too good to be true. 

When you’ve finished supper and your wine the two of you take your dishes inside, piling them in the sink. But before you can wash them or move to fill the dishwasher Nelson has you gathered in his arms, his soft lips pressed to yours. 

“What are you up to?” you tease him, as if you don’t very well know. 

“Dessert.”   

“I’m afraid I taste like garlic.” 

“I don’t care.” 

And he proves it too, sweeping you off to the back bedroom where you make love with a slow tenderness that leaves you no doubts that this is where you belong, in this man’s arms. It’s interesting how it’s simultaneously a first time and a return to familiar territory. You fumble and laugh at yourselves until you find that perfect rhythm together, then oh. You forget that you just ate, because it's as though the two of you mean to devour each other. His mouth on your mouth and his body filling yours is nothing less than divine, and you find release together with your fingers laced in a desperate grasp over your head and his eyes locked with yours. 

You think this man might see straight to your soul, and that doesn’t scare you anymore. You’re ready to accept every part of him with open arms.

Later, lying in the quiet with Nelson’s steady heartbeat beneath your ear, you thank the Universe for the second chance fate or a miracle or Dr. Julian Mercer granted to you. 

Nelson is half asleep when he realizes there’s a puddle on his chest. He swipes at your tears with his long fingers, kissing the top of your head. “Are you crying? Did I hurt you?” 

You sniff and laugh shakily at his panic and the absurdity of the suggestion. “No, babe. I’m just…so happy. I love you.” 

He relaxes with relief beneath you, and you would have teased him more about it if it wasn’t so heartbreakingly sweet. “I love you too, y/n.”

You don’t say anything about the matching dampness in your hair, and the two of you slip into a blissful doze.

epilogue:

“My love, how is it that furry cute animals flock to you at every turn? You're like a damn Disney princess.”

He says this with complete and total affection, and you stick your tongue out at him, your eyes obscured by your big black shades.

“The chicken in Valencia did not have fur.”

“But one presumes, a flock.”

“Not sure. Maybe it was lonely.” You scratch the chin of the little dog that has glommed on to you at the outdoor café. You're pretty sure it has an owner; it looks cared for, so you don’t think you’ll have to commit any crimes…but it clearly knows where to go to collect a steady supply of the I’m cute tax.

As of right now, it has seated itself upon your foot.

You regard the man sitting across from you, your heart full as ever it has been on this trip. He looks content, relaxed, wine glass in hand and his white button down open at the throat. He looks happy, and you think you can take some credit for that. 

You are going to have a nice little lunch, and then you’re going to wile away the hottest part of the day together by making love and napping naked on top of the covers. Siesta is a wonderful thing.

Life is good for the two of you now, and you do not take that for granted. You seize every moment you have together with both hands,  beginning the day with gratitude in your heart, and ending it with a kiss goodnight from the man you love. 

You both are happy, and you're in love. 

Life could never be better, or sweeter, than this.

the end...