Victory

Chapter 1

“… So, Mary W. and Susan will be on three-west. Mary C. and Hanna on three-east and Sydney… where is Sydney?” Hospital Director Dr. Kline asked as he peered over his half spectacles towards the group of nurses in front of him.

“Here right here!” the brown haired young woman announced as she slid into the hallway behind the rest of her coworkers. “Sorry Pine Street was closed; I had to come a different route,” she explained.

“I see well we’re a bit short staffed today so you’ll be on the second floor west. Is that alright?” Dr. Kline asked her.

Sydney thought for a moment. Typically, she was stationed on the third floor; she had never been stationed on the second floor before. To make things worse, she had never been on the second floor west; she shivered at the thought of going there. “B-by myself?” she stammered.

“There are just two patients there today; you’ll be fine,” Dr. Kline assured her.

“Oh…alright,” she agreed softly. You’ll be fine Dr. Kline had said; well, Sydney didn’t think so. She loved being a nurse; she truly did. She had wanted to be one ever since she was a little girl and wore on of her mother’s old nurse outfits while playing dress up. She loved her job at Virginia’s Army Navy hospital even more than she loved nursing at a regular hospital, too. She loved being able to help America’s effort in World War II even if it was just in that small way. However, she was sure that she would not love working on the second floor west, especially working it alone.

While every floor of the hospital was filled with former soldiers all wounded, some worse than others, Sydney found 2W (second floor west) to be a particularly depressing area. Why? The fact was simple really: 2W was the long-term care area, meaning all the men in that ward did not know who they were and, worse, they did not know their loved ones, either. Sydney found this to be the most tragic of all injuries suffered by the soldiers. Broken bones healed, so did cuts and burns. The loss of a limb could be managed with medication and therapy. The brain however…well, treating it was not as easy.

The sad fact was many of the men located in 2W would never remember who they were. If they could not remember their names or their families, it was very difficult to reunite them, so they were often left alone in more ways than one. This utterly broke Sydney’s heart, so she was not looking forward to working there at all. She only hoped it would just be for one day and not much longer.

After adjusting the white nurse’s hat on her head and smoothing down her white dress, Sydney walked up the stairs and into ward 2W. Dr. Kline had been right; almost all the beds were empty. Halfway down the row of beds on the left side of the wall was a man, but Sydney could not see him because a white curtain was drawn almost all the way around the bed. Along the right side of the wall, though, Sydney saw a brown haired man sitting up in his bed and walked towards him.

“Hello,” she said politely with her ever-present yet mildly fake nurses’ smile. “My name is Sydney and I’m going to be working here today.” Before saying another word, she paused at the end of the bed. Most of the time, she asked a patients name, but the patients on 2W did not remember their names. Instead, they were identified by hospital ID numbers and given fake names to make everything seem more personable.

Instead of looking at his chart to find out his fake name, Sydney opted for a different route entirely. “How are you feeling today? Hmm?” She noticed the man’s right hand was heavily bandaged as well as the right side of his face. His left eye was free, though, and focusing intently on his lap.

“Sir can you hear me?” Sydney asked cautiously a moment later. This man had not moved an inch or made any indication that he had heard her, so perhaps he had not. After all, hearing loss or hearing difficulties were common side effects of these war veterans.

“He won’t say anything,” said the other man in the room.

Sydney turned around and walked curiously towards the opposite side of the room. “Excuse me?”

“He won’t say anything. He’s been here for three weeks and hasn’t said one word, so you may as well stop trying,” the man said to her.

“I see,” Sydney said carefully, reaching out for the curtain around the man’s bed. “Do you mind if I talk with you then?”

“Go right ahead.”

Noting the man’s casual tone, Sydney pulled back the white curtain slowly. The first thing she saw was the man’s left leg elevated in a sling and covered in a pure white cast, obviously broken. Then, as her eyes traveled up his body she saw a few cuts and scrapes that were healing over; nothing major. When she saw his face though, she found the most predominant of his injuries. His left eye was black and swollen almost completely shut. Above that eye was a long cut sewn together with stitches and beginning to heal. His head was wrapped in a bandage, too, so Sydney suspected there were more cuts underneath there.

“How are you feeling?” she asked him.

“Been better…been worse, so I guess I’m doing alright,” he responded.

“Well I’m glad to hear that,” she smiled softly, that time a genuine smile. There was something about this man’s tone that just made her feel…relaxed. Maybe ward 2W wasn’t going to be so bad after all. “What should I call you, sir?”

“Michael. They call me Michael,” he said as he slowly turned his good eye up to look at her. When Sydney’s brown eyes met with his green something strange went off inside her heart and she gasped loudly. It felt as though she had been pounded in the chest with a bag full of bricks; she had never felt anything like it before.

“E-excuse me,” she said quickly before turning around and scurrying out of the room. It was definitely going to be a very, very long day.

Chapter 2

After spending a few moments in the bathroom, splashing water on her face and collecting herself, Sydney returned to 2W and offered her apologies to the man who identified himself as Michael. “I am very sorry. I was just… suddenly not feeling very well.”

“Are you feeling better now?” he asked. She nodded. “Well good. So now as I was sayin’ that man over there won’t talk to anyone. I’ve seen half a dozen different nurses try, but he won’t even look at ‘em. So you’re welcome to try all you want, just don’t feel bad if you don’t get any response.”

“Well perhaps he’s deaf,” Sydney suggested reasonably.

Michael chuckled and shook his head. “Definitely not. A few days ago a nurse came in here and dropped one of those metal trays with a few glass bottles on it. Made the loudest noise I ever heard and he looked in that direction, so he can’t be deaf.”

“Well then I suppose I’m out of explanations,” she sighed. Then, she walked to the foot of his bed and picked up his medical chart. Upon doing this, she noticed that her hands were trembling rather violently and she tried desperately to steady them. Her efforts were fruitless so she turned her back, hoping Michael would not notice.

After reading the proper medications off of his chart, Sydney went to retrieve them and handed them to him with a glass of water. Then, she did the same with the silent man. She saw on his chart that he was to be called “Tim” and used this name while handing him his medication. Though he did not look at her or speak to her, he swallowed the pills and the water before handing the two empty cups back to her.

“Now how about we change some of those bandages, hm?” she asked Tim rhetorically, knowing he would not answer. She made quick work of his hand and head bandages before washing her hand and moving on to the dressings on Michael’s body.

“How long have you been here?” she asked him while tending to the stitches on his forehead.

“Just a few days longer than him,” Michael said, gesturing towards the man across the room. “So about three weeks. I was over in England before that.”

“Is that the first thing you remember?” she asked softly.

He nodded. “First thing I knew I was waking up in a bright white room… thought I was dead,” he laughed softly. “But no, I was just bandaged head to toe; got some burns on my back, you see, but they’re all healed up now. Don’t even hurt, either. I guess I’m lucky in that way.”

“Yes,” Sydney agreed.

Once she finished changing all of Michael’s bandages, she went off to retrieve a pan of warm water and soap so that he could bathe as much as possible. Being the modest woman she was raised during the 1930’s to be, Sydney was a furiously blushing wreck the first time she was instructed, as a nurse, to bathe an ill man. However, since she had been doing so in her nursing practice for nearly six years, ever since graduating from nursing school, she was quite used to it by then and it no longer fazed her a bit; it was just part of the job of taking care of people.

When Sydney returned to Michael’s bedside, she placed the pan of water on a nearby table before assisting him in pulling off his hospital-issue shirt. Then, she rolled the table with the water right bedside his bed, dipped a clean cloth in it and then handed it over to him after wringing it out. She found in her experience with incapacitated men who, like Michael, could not move from bed due to a broken limb it was best to allow them to do as much of the washing as they could; it lifted their spirits even just that little bit.

“You know, this is my favorite part of the day,” Michael said as he rubbed the cloth over his face, wetting his chin and jaw so that he could shave with the mirror Sydney was about to hold out for him.

“Well, yes, being clean is nice,” she said, not sure of what he meant by his comment.

“Yes, but that’s not what I meant. I meant its nice being fawned over by pretty young women like yourself,” he pointed out with a cheeky grin.

Sydney’s heart fluttered at his perfect smile, though she ignored it. “I see…now I understand why your chart had troublemaker written all over it.”

“It did not…did it?” he asked rather nervously.

“It didn’t,” she assured him with a slight laugh. “Perhaps I should write it on though…”

“I’ll be good; I promise,” he said before taking the razor she was holding out.

After shaving away his stubble, Michael allowed Sydney to take over the bathing process. He held himself in a sitting upright position as she ran the moist cloth over his back, taking painful note of some of the burn scars there. True, they were not the worst she had seen by far, but any burn scars broke her heart. Then, she handed the cloth back to him so he could clean his chest and hands.

“Can’t wait ‘til this bandage comes off my head and I can wash my hair and get a haircut,” he laughed softly once he was finished.

“Well I believe your chart mentioned something about it just being a few more days,” she told him hopefully.

“I hope that’s right,” he said with a half smile. She gave him a sympathetic look before taking the now dirty water pan and cloth to wash out in the sink. As much as she wanted to give Michael all her attention, she could not; she had another patient to attend to, one who clearly needed more assistance.

Chapter 3

After giving Tim his bath, during which he made no more effort to look at her or speak to her, meaning she had to do all his bathing herself, Sydney took a brief lunch break. Truthfully, she did not have much appetite, but she managed to eat most of an apple, knowing she would be very lightheaded if she did not eat something. Once through with her minimal meal, she returned to 2W to fill out some paperwork regarding her two patients.

“Sydney? Sydney are you out there?” she heard Michael call out. Thinking something was wrong, she rushed quickly from her tiny desk and over to his bedside.

“What is it?!” she asked in a rather frantic tone.

“I’m just bored,” he said with a slight shrug. Sydney exhaled heavily, rounding her shoulders in the process, giving him an obviously annoyed look. “Well aren’t you bored too? What are you doing right now?”

“Paperwork,” she told him.

“Good. Then you can play a game with me,” he said, holding up a deck of cards with an enticing smile.

She shook her head, refusing. “No, I can’t. I need to do my job.”

“Which is tending to the patient’s needs and right now I’m in need of playing a game,” he grinned. Sydney couldn’t help but laugh softly at this. “Just one game! Please?”

“Fine; one game,” she sighed. A proud smile crossed Michael’s face as he pulled the table hanging over the edge of his bed closer. Sydney retrieved a stool to sit down on and placed it beside his bed as Michael dealt out the cards.

“Can I say something to you that may or may not be appropriate for a patient to say to his nurse?” Michael asked.

“Okay…,” Sydney said very slowly as she picked up her group of eight cards, wondering what he was about to say to her.

“You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen,” he told her softly.

Immediately Sydney’s heart rate sped up and she began to blush. “Now I’m definitely going to have to write ‘Troublemaker’ on your chart,” she said, trying to avoid having to give any other sort of response to his unexpected compliment.

“How do you know I’m not just trying to get more pudding with my dinner this evening?” he raised an eyebrow to her.

Sydney laughed softly. “Well, I’m not in charge of the pudding…”

“Oh…right…forgot,” he said with a casual shrug. “But you might know the person who is in charge of the pudding so you could get her to slip me some extra.”

“If I was going to get her to slip you something, it would not be pudding,” Sydney said casually as she picked up a card from the deck laying face-down on the table.

“Hey!” Michael laughed. “Nothing needs to be slipped into my food thank you very much. I’ll be just fine on my own.”

“Good to know,” she smiled ever so slightly.

After playing the one game she promised to play, Sydney returned to her paperwork much to Michael’s displeasure. She promised him, though, that if she finished in enough time, she would play another game with him. She did, in fact, finish in plenty of time, so after passing out the late afternoon dose of medication, she sat down in the stool once more and played card games with Michael until it was time for her to leave for the day.

“Will you be back tomorrow?” Michael asked Sydney as she was preparing to leave.

“I don’t know,” she told him honestly. “Normally I’m stationed upstairs, but today they were short on staff so I was moved down here. Tomorrow I might be back at my regular station.”

“Oh,” he said in an almost sad tone. “Well in that case it was nice to meet you; I enjoyed playing cards with you.”

“So did I,” she said with a slight smile.

“Stop by and visit sometime if you want to,” he told her just as she was about to walk away. She nodded softly before waving and leaving the ward quickly, suddenly in desperate need of some fresh air.

Outside it was a beautiful late-April afternoon. Ironically, it was just a few days after Sydney’s twenty-fourth birthday, but she had little reason to celebrate with a war going on. After taking a few deep calming breaths while standing beside her car, Sydney climbed inside and began the drive home, knowing she needed to do it as quickly as possible for she was not sure how much longer she could keep her tears at bay.

As she expected, her day on ward 2W had been one of the hardest of her nursing career, but not for the reason she expected it to be. In fact, Michael’s friendly smile made it even harder for her. He was such a sweet person with an obvious sense of humor. She knew he had family who missed him; family who probably didn’t know he was alive. Thoughts like that cause a lump to rise in her throat, but she managed to fight it off all day long by focusing on her work. Outside of work, though, it was impossible to hold back.

Relief flooded Sydney’s body as she pulled into the driveway of her modest one-story home, located close to the Army Navy Hospital and one of the nearby naval bases. She had relocated to that place of residence a few months earlier after making the decision to change jobs. For many years she had worked in a family practitioner’s office being both nurse and secretary. After the war began, though, she felt she needed to do her part and she did that by donating her services to those injured by the war and in need of care for their recovery.

Though it was difficult leaving the only family she had left behind (her parents and younger sister), she was fulfilled knowing she was helping those who had served her country. Still, every time she walked into her lonely and empty home, she wished she had someone to share it. That day in particular Sydney felt the loneliness emanating from the walls.

Her thoughts began drifting back to Michael, all alone in his hospital bed, as tears flowed down her cheeks. She knew he was a good man, just like her husband had been. That was the man she cried her tears for – her husband, missing in action like so many others.

The day she got the telegram was so vivid in her mind, it could have been yesterday not four months earlier. She knew the moment the envelope was placed in her hand that the news was not good. She honestly did not know which was worse, finding out he was dead, or finding out he was missing presumed dead. At least finding out he was dead came with confirmation, closure. Missing presumed dead was so… open. She would never ever have solace from it even if… well, she couldn’t dwell on that; the day had already been too long.

Chapter 4

The following day at work, as Sydney suspected, she was back working on the third floor. She had to admit she was actually very glad for this. As much as she had enjoyed speaking with Michael, it broke her heart all the more; she was best doing the job she was used to.

Though she did not see him, every day when Sydney walked up the stairs to the third floor, she paused on the second floor landing, thinking about Michael. She wondered if she should go and visit him, just for a few moments to say hello, but every time she thought this she decided against it; it just wasn’t a good idea.

Just a few days later, over a weekend, a new throng of American patients arrived from many different hospitals overseas. As usual when this happened, the hospital was quickly overflowing with patients. Every single bed was filled and the nurses were working overtime to accommodate all these people. When this happened, it was imperative they release all the patients they possibly could, most likely those who had been at the hospital for a significant period of time.

When it came to releasing patients, releasing those from ward 2W was always problematic. Often times they did not have family who had identified them, giving them no home to return to. Since it was rather unfair and cruel to turn them out on the street with just the clothes on their back, they were often put into the care of good Samaritans who offered to take them in. As the number of patients increased, though, the number willing and able to take them dwindled.

As usual, this issue was brought up at the hospital staff meeting first thing on Monday morning. “Now, hopefully some patients will be here no longer than a week. I believe there are three in 3E that would be discharged in that time and two in 3W. As for 2w…have we heard anything from any families?” Dr. Kline asked his nursing staff.

“Two families are to come in later today, but they did not sound very hopeful,” one of the nurses told him.

“I see,” Dr. Kline sighed with a rather grim expression. At his tone, an unsettling guilt crept over Sydney and she swallowed hard. She knew she had to come clean but…well, she was not quite sure if she was ready to face the consequences of doing so.

After sitting through the rest of the staff meeting and barely paying attention, Sydney sidled her way up to Dr. Kline, stating that she needed to speak with him about something in private. She followed him to his office and took a seat across from his desk, feeling absolutely terrible about what she was about to admit. “The truth is,” she began quietly, “one of the patients in 2W… I…I know who he is; I know his real name.”

“You do?!” Dr. Kline asked with shock. Sydney nodded sheepishly. “Well why didn’t you say something before?”

Sydney sniffed slightly, unsure of how to answer that. “Well the truth is I didn’t recognize him at first. Part of his face is swollen and cut, you see and so I did not recognize him until I had spoken with him for a while; then I realized.”

Dr. Kline nodded in understanding. Injuries made it even more difficult to identify the patients in 2W. If their faces were cut, swollen, burned or damaged in another way it was nearly impossible for family members to recognize and thus identify them. Sadly, it was just a fact they had to face. “Well, who is it?” he asked, retrieving his stack of files on 2W patients.

“It’s patient number 5520. The name on the file is Michael… his real name is Michael Vaughn; I’ve known him since we were ten years old,” she admitted. Tears had filled her eyes so much by that point she could hardly see Dr. Kline’s desk, though it was only a foot in front of her.

Dr. Kline wrote this name down on the top of the file. “Can you contact his family?”

“H-he doesn’t have any….ex-except me,” she admitted with a hiccupped sob. Then, in a barely audible strained voice she said, “I’m his wife…”

With this obviously unexpected and shocking information, Dr. Kline’s eyes shot up and he gazed wide-eyed at the young woman in tears before him. Knowing she needed a moment to collect herself, he sat back in his chair and waited patiently for her tears to cease.

After a few minutes, Sydney wiped her cheeks dry and apologized in a hoarse voice. “I’m sorry I just… I didn’t recognize him and then, when I did, I couldn’t believe it was him – I thought he was dead. And then…then when he didn’t know me – didn’t know who I was – it was just… it was easier to believe he was gone than to believe he was here but not really here…”

Dr. Kline nodded sympathetically. Many families of the patients in ward 2W felt the same way. Sydney’s emotions were completely understandable and justifiable. It was hard enough to see a loved one injured, stitched up and bruised, but to have them not recognize you…well, it was like losing them all over again.

“I understand Sydney,” Dr. Kline said softly. “It’s alright. Now, according to this chart, Michael’s cast is due to come off in a few days. After that, as long as his leg is healed properly, we will release him. How would you like us to proceed?”

For a full minute, Sydney sat there and said nothing. Then finally she requested softly, “Could I have a day to think about it, please?”

“Of course,” the doctor nodded. Sydney stood and thanked him for his time and kindness before leaving his office and heading up to 3E; she had work to do.

~*~

Later that evening, after going home and having herself another good cry, Sydney called her parents. Typically, she only called them once a week on Saturday since phone charges were rather expensive. This new development, however, warranted a call.

Naturally her parents were surprised to hear from her, but not nearly as surprised as they were when she told them her news. Her husband was alive in the physical sense anyway. Sadly, he did not recognize her or remember who he was in any capacity whatsoever. Even worse, there was no guarantee he would ever remember, so Sydney had a decision to make.

She could tell Michael the truth, take him home with her as her husband, and try to pick up the pieces of their lives. She could not tell him the truth, spare herself the pain, and hope he found happiness living his life as a different person. Or, she could tell him who he was, but sadly inform him they could not continue their lives together, for it would be too painful living with a stranger who was once the man she adored. No matter what she chose, though, she knew her heart would break all over again like the day she had received the fateful telegram. Whatever her decision was she knew it would be the hardest one she’d ever have to make.

Chapter 5

May 8, 1945. More commonly, this day was known as V - E Day or Victory in Europe day; the day when the war in Europe was finally over. Naturally, this momentous milestone brought celebration throughout the United States and the world. The hospital where Sydney worked was no exception to this.

This day came just two days after Sydney admitted to Dr. Kline her true relation to Michael, something she was still struggling with admitting herself. As much as she wanted to keep herself away from Michael and save herself the pain, she knew that was far too selfish. On such a happy day, she, at the very least, needed to pay him a short visit to say hello.

Walking in to ward 2W, Sydney was not shocked to find it in a state of organized chaos. All the beds were filled with men, some looking much more miserable and battered than others, and nurses were running around tending to all their needs. The ward looked so different Sydney could hardly believe she had been in the same place two weeks earlier.

When searching for Michael, her eyes were immediately drawn to the bed he previously occupied, but he was not there. She knew that he had to be in the room somewhere and was just contemplating a way to search every bed without being too obvious when she heard her name being called out. Looking to her left, she saw Michael waving from a bed in the very front corner of the room; her heart fluttered.

“Hey you finally came to visit me,” he smiled when she approached his bed.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “You’re looking better.” She was surprised to find how different his appearance was in just a short period of time. The stitches in his head were gone and, instead, there was a very thin scab that would eventually fade into a soft scar. Almost all the other cuts and bruise marring his skin were completely healed and his black and swollen eye looked much better. Plus, he no longer had bandages surrounding his head, so she could once again see his perfectly colored sandy blonde hair.

“I’m feeling better. They say this cast is going to come off soon and I really can’t wait to see my leg again,” he said with a slight laugh. She barely managed to crack a smile. “Here, c’mere, sit down. I mean, can you stay a little while?”

“For a little while yeah; I’m on my lunch break,” she explained as she sat in the chair beside his bed like he asked her to.

“Good,” he smiled at her. “So its an exciting day, huh? The war’s over… in Europe, anyway. I think it will be over in the Pacific soon, too, don’t you?”

“I hope so,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” he asked sounding genuinely concerned. “You seem so…sad. You should be happy!”

“I am,” she lied. “It’s just… you know, the war’s over but there are so many lives left ruined and families torn apart still…”

“Right,” he nodded. They were silent for a few moments before Michael continued. “Remember last time? When I told you your had beautiful eyes?” he asked. She nodded and blushed ever so slightly. “Well, what I didn’t say was that you also have the saddest eyes I’ve ever seen. Did you…did you lose someone in the war?”

With this question, Sydney’s gaze shot up to meet his. She swallowed hard. How was she to answer that? With the truth? She was not sure if she was quite ready to tell him who she really was; who he really was; who they were. “Someone…,” she repeated softly.

“Your husband perhaps?” he asked, pointing towards her left hand, where she still wore a gold wedding band.

She looked down at it before holding her hand close to her chest and nodding slightly. “He….he’s officially listed as Missing in Action – Presumed Dead…has been for a while now,” she admitted softly.

“Oh Sydney I am so sorry,” he said with genuine concern. “But hey maybe they’re wrong! Maybe…maybe he’s like me! Maybe he just doesn’t remember who he is!” Michael suggested hopefully.

With this heart wrenching suggestion, Sydney squeezed her eyes shut tightly and two tears rolled down her cheeks. Of course, her tears made Michael feel terrible, and he began apologizing immediately, but she told him it was fine (even though it wasn’t). “Let’s just talk about something else,” she suggested softly.

“We can definitely do that,” he smiled. “Oh! Tim finally said something!”

“Did he?” Sydney laughed softly at Michael’s excitement. “What did he say?”

“Well it was as they were moving our beds around and bringing in all these other guys. He said, ‘I want a room with a view,’ and that was it.”

“But that doesn’t make sense…,” Sydney said slowly.

“Yeah I think a bit more got knocked around up there than just his memory,” Michael said, tapping on his forehead. “I guess I’m lucky in that respect… I mean, I may not remember my name, but at least I can add two and two and get four and I know all the days of the week,” he said proudly.

“Well I guess that’s half the battle, isn’t it?” Sydney asked with a soft laugh.

“I would think so, yes,” he sighed. Then, from the table beside his bed he picked up his deck of cards and held them up with a grin. “Just one game.”

“Just one; then my break will be over,” she told him. He nodded in agreement and began to shuffle the cards.

After their one game was over (she won, though she suspected he let her win), Sydney stood and informed Michael that she needed to be getting back to work. “Alright,” he sighed, collecting his cards from her. “But don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Okay,” she agreed softly. “I’ll come back after you get your cast off to see if your leg is still underneath there.”

“Hmm how about you come and help cut it off?” he said, countering her visitation offer.

“If I can; I will,” she promised him.

“Deal,” he smiled. Then he waved as she walked away, willing herself not to cry.

Chapter 6

Two days passed and Sydney became so consumed with her guilt she could barely eat or sleep. She knew that Michael, had he been his former self, would have been disappointed in her. Michael – her Michael – would not have wanted her to give up and that is exactly what she was doing. She was running because she thought it was easier than fighting. That’s what they did; they fought, but without him fighting with her just seemed too hard.

She did not know how she was supposed to look at him and see her husband but not see him as her husband. After all, he wasn’t her husband; not anymore. He didn’t remember how they met or how they started dating. He didn’t know what day they got married or have any recollection of that event. He didn’t know the life they shared together for four wonderful years before he left for the war, and that was the most painful thing of all.

She did not know how to live her life with a stranger as her husband. Yet, at the same time, she knew it was incredibly unfair to keep him in the dark. After all, Michael in his present state was just lying in a hospital, wondering if he had any family who even cared about him. He deserved at the very least to know his identity and after that…well, they would have to take things one step at a time.

At the end of her shift, before going home, Sydney stopped by 2W trembling with nerves. She found it to be in a similar state as it was at her previous visit, except the V - E Day excitement had worn down. Michael, she knew, was to have his cast removed the following morning, so she expected him to be rather antsy. She hoped that this preoccupation with something positive might cushion the blow of her news a bit.

Armed with a fist full of tissues, Sydney slowly approached Michael’s bed; he grinned immediately upon seeing her. “Sydney I’m glad you’re here. I’m getting my cast off tomorrow.”

“I know,” she said softly, the emotions already showing in her tone. Then again, that was unavoidable.

“What’s wrong?” he asked with a brow wrinkling with concern. Sydney’s heart lurched in her chest; she loved those wrinkles. When they sat on the couch together in the evenings she used to trace her thumb across them almost every night. He used to laugh at her, wondering why she was so taken with them, but she could never explain it.

“I-I have to tell you something… I wish we could do it some place more private but…,” she let her voice drift off. Then she walked over to the white curtain pulled to one side of his bed and dragged it all the way around so they were relatively alone.

“What is it? Am I dying?” he asked with concern.

“No, no,” she assured him quickly.

“Are you dying?!”

“No,” she choked slightly on her tears. “No one’s dying. I just…I should have told you this before, but I didn’t know how… so I’m telling you now and I’m sorry I waited so long and I hope you can forgive me and understand why I didn’t tell you at first…”

“Okay…,” he said rather slowly before swallowing hard. He had no idea what she was about to say, but her tearful state was unnerving him.

Sydney dabbed her cheeks with a tissue before sitting down at the edge of his bed, right beside his cast-free foot. Then, staring intently at the blankets on the bed she began softly in an almost haunted voice, “I know who you are Michael; I know you. We…we met in the fifth grade when we were ten years old.”

“You know who I am?” he croaked out. Suddenly his throat felt incredibly dry and his heart was pounding in his chest.

Sydney nodded solemnly. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before, but I didn’t recognize you, you see. With you’re eye… I couldn’t see your face; I couldn’t tell.”

“Okay,” he nodded. This was understandable. He had seen himself with his one good eye in the mirror while shaving and knew that half of his face was distorted with bruising and swelling. He even noticed his appearance begin to change as the swelling went down. “So…so who am I?”

“You’re name is Michael Vaughn. You were born in Virginia on November 27, 1920; you’re twenty-four years old,” she told him.

“My name really is Michael?!” he asked with a happy laugh. “Well that’s convenient!” Sydney managed a small smile at this, though it faded quickly.

“So….so I’m Michael… Michael Vaughn,” he continued. “Okay so do I have a family? Parents? Brothers?”

Sydney shook her head sadly. “I’m sorry, but your parents died when you were very young. You were raised by your aunt – the only one you had – and she never married or had children. She died two years ago, shortly after you left for the war,” she explained.

With this news, Michael’s excitement faded away very quickly. He slumped back against his pillow and looked away distantly for a few minutes. “So I really am alone…,” he concluded softly.

“No,” Sydney said, her bravery almost completely gone by that point. “You…you have a wife.”

Michael’s gaze snapped towards her immediately and he saw the tears just pouring out of both of her eyes and down her cheeks. He swallowed hard, somehow just knowing she wasn’t just Sydney, the girl he met in fifth grade. “A wife?” he asked softly.

She shut her eyes tightly and nodded her head. “It’s….it’s me,” she croaked out finally. Then her tears took over and she covered her face with her hands to hide her tears, though her sobs gave them away rather clearly.

Michael had no idea how to respond to this, even if he had seen it coming. He had so many millions of questions to ask, yet clearly Sydney was in no state to answer them. Cautiously, he reached his hand out to touch her shoulder comfortingly, but this only made her jump off the bed, shaking her head with a tearful, “No!”

“No I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” she continued, maintaining a safe distance from him. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you, but I really didn’t recognize you! Your face was so swollen and…and when you finally looked at me, that first day, I saw your eyes and I recognized you then but I didn’t believe it!” she cried.

“That’s why I ran from the room – I just couldn’t believe it. I wouldn’t let myself believe it because you were dead. They told me you were dead. But you’re not dead…you’re here…but you’re not. You don’t remember me, though, and that hurt so much. I know it’s not your fault, but it doesn’t make it hurt any less. So I pretended you weren’t you because it was easier; it didn’t hurt as much.

“But you… you are Michael Vaughn, but… you’re not my husband,” she concluded sadly. “My husband loved me. He remembered the time we shared together. He wanted to spend his life with me. He knew every joke and every memory. And you…you’re not that person. And I’m sorry,” she croaked out. Then, she hurried to the other side of the bed, fought her way through the white curtain and escaped ward 2W. Michael called after her, begging her to come back, but she refused to listen. She didn’t stop running until she was sitting in the front seat of her car, leaning over the steering wheel and crying.

Chapter 7

Luckily for Sydney, the following day was Saturday meaning she had two days to mentally recover before she needed to go back to work and face the music, so to speak. She chose to tell Michael the news on a Friday thinking that the weekend would give a nice opportunity to let the gravity of her information sink in. That way, they could rationally think things through instead of making a decision based on emotional impulse.

Truthfully, Sydney was not sure what she wanted to do with the new version of Michael, who she could not think of as her husband. If she simply turned him out on the street to live his life with someone other than her, she knew she would be too consumed with guilt and misery to live with herself. Somehow, he had to be in her life, but she was not sure in what capacity it would be.

Before she made a decision on that front, though, she decided she was going to find out his medical situation worse. After all, if he needed to leave the hospital immediately she only had a short period of time to make a decision where as if he needed to be there for another few weeks.

On Monday morning, first thing, she found out the answer to this wondering. At the staff meeting, Dr. Kline pulled her aside and informed her they needed to speak in his office about Michael’s condition at eleven am that morning. Sydney agreed to this, and went up to 3W to continue her work until this time.

Since Michael’s cast was to come off two days earlier, Sydney suspected the subject of her meeting with Dr. Kline would revolve around Michael’s leg and how much more care or recovery it would need before he would be allowed to leave the hospital. Perhaps his leg even required another surgery. She was not sure of its original condition and thus could not guess on that subject. Of all the things she thought would be discussed at the meeting, Sydney did not think Michael would be present for them, however she was very, ever wrong.

Sydney froze in the dead center of Dr. Kline’s office door when she saw Michael sitting in a chair across from his desk. He had no casts or bandages on his leg and was wearing some hospital-issue slippers on his feet. His cotton shirt and slacks, which were slightly too large for him, were obviously donated to the hospital for the soldiers without families to wear.

When he noticed Sydney in the doorway, he quickly reached for the crutches on the floor at his feet. Using them he stood up, favoring his non-broken leg and leaning on the crutches to support his weight. As Michael stood the doctor did as well, both of them turning to face the still statuesque Sydney.

“Oh good you’re here,” Dr Kline began. “Right on time, too. Please have a seat and we’ll get started.”

At his words, Sydney managed to walk into the room, though it was in a rather robotic fashion. She sat down in the chair beside Michael’s and watched him sit as well. All the while, she was barely breathing and could not have formed words if her life depended on it.

“Now, Sydney, as you can see we have removed Michael’s cast. His leg bones have healed perfectly and he has no signs of infection or any other problems. As for the rest of his injuries, they have healed as well, so we would like to discharge him from the hospital as soon as possible. Today even,” Dr. Kline told her.

“T-today?” Sydney stammered.

“Well yes…is that a problem?” Dr. Kline asked with confusion. He glanced from Sydney to Michael and noticed a rather out of place look on the man’s face. Clearing his throat slightly, Dr. Kline said, “Perhaps I should give you two a moment alone.” Then, he left quickly, shutting the door behind him.

“Sydney please,” Michael began softly once he was gone. She refused to look at him; she merely continued to stare down at the floor. “Please, Sydney. I know you’re upset and I can’t blame you for that. I mean…this whole thing is a mess. I want to remember you Sydney, I want to remember you so badly but I can’t. I hate that I can’t but I can’t fix it either. I’m trying so hard to remember but…

“Please just give me a chance,” he begged. “Please. I mean, who knows I might remember. Maybe if I got home and I get back into my normal routine I’d remember. I… I just don’t know, but please don’t give up on us Sydney. I know this will be really hard for you… I can’t even imagine how hard it will be but please give me a chance. Please?”

For a moment she didn’t react at all. In fact, she was sitting so still Michael was concerned she had suddenly gone deaf and had no heard a word he said. Finally, though, she turned her head and met his gaze, tears clearly showing in her eyes. “Okay,” she agreed quietly.

“Okay!?” Michael asked excitedly. Sydney nodded, though she did not smile at all. “Thank You, Sydney, thank you,” he said genuinely.

“Yeah,” she said softly. Then she stood and wiped her cheeks free of tears before walking out into the hall and finding Dr. Kline. She informed him that she was going to be taking Michael home.

“Well that’s wonderful! I’ll just fill out his discharge papers and you two can be on your way,” Dr. Kline smiled.

“Now?!” Sydney asked, surprised. “But I’m still working for another few hours…”

“Oh that’s alright; I’ll find someone to cover your shift. I’m sure Michael is anxious to get home,” Dr. Kline told her happily. Michael seemed happy about this too, which was not surprising. After spending the only part of his life he could remember in a hospital, it was obvious why he wanted to go into a home environment. Sydney, on the other hand, was not very happy. She would not even have time to prepare the house or herself for Michael’s arrival; she would just have to pay it by ear, which she was not very excited about doing.

“Thank you so much for doing this, Sydney,” Michael said as they were walking (well, hobbling in his case) out to the car. The doctor informed him that while his leg was healed, he should use the crutches to ease back into putting his weight on it for at least a week or so.

Sydney said nothing in response to this, but Michael continued anyway. “I want you to know that I heard you when you said I’m not your husband. I understand that and I’ll respect it. We’ll just be friends, okay?”

“Okay,” she said softly. Then she helped him inside the car and put his crutches in the back seat before walking around to the driver’s side knowing that she had a very long afternoon ahead of her.

Chapter 8

Their drive home was silent, at least on Sydney’s part. Michael kept talking, mentioning things he spotted as they drive, but Sydney essentially ignored him, too consumed with her own obsession over how she was going to live with a man who was essentially a stranger to her.

“So this is where we lived, huh?” Michael asked when Sydney pulled into the driveway of her home.

“No, we didn’t live here. We lived about two hours north of here. I moved here after you went away,” she explained.

“Oh I see,” he nodded. He waited for Sydney to retrieve his crutches from the back car seat before stepping out of the car and following Sydney up the front walk. Inside, he found a nicely decorated home filled with mementoes belonging to the man and woman that lived there. This was the beginning of Michael’s surreal experience, for he knew many of those things belong to him yet he recognized none of them.

“So, um, this is it. The kitchen’s back there and this is a sitting room obviously. Then down that hall there are two bedrooms – one is empty – and a bathroom,” Sydney explained, saying more words in that sentence than she had in the prior hour combined.

“It’s nice,” he smiled at her.

“So, um, are you hungry? I could make us some sandwiches… or, um, you could change into your clothes, or you could just keep those on… I-I’m sorry I don’t really know what to do,” she sighed sadly, looking down at her feet.

“Well, a sandwich would be nice, if you don’t mind…”

“No its okay,” she said. Then she turned and went into the kitchen.

While she was gone, Michael hobbled his way around the couch he was standing beside and over towards the opposite wall, on which were book shelves all the way from the ceiling to the floor. Not all the shelves were full of books, some had photographs in frames or music albums, but there were a significant number of books of all sizes and shapes.

“You sure have quite a library,” Michael called to Sydney, who was still in the kitchen. “Are they all yours?”

“Actually, they’re yours,” she called back to him. After a moment she appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, drying her hands on a towel. “All of them; they’re yours. You went to college to be a high school English teacher.”

“I’m a teacher,” he said with slight disbelief, looking back towards the books.

“No,” she corrected him. “You never got to teach. As soon as you graduated you went into the army.” After saying this she went back into the kitchen.

Michael scanned over the volumes before him and found himself recalling plotlines and characters as he did so. This, he found, to be a positive sign and decided that after he ate, he would choose one of the books to read, hoping it would further jog his memory.

Before he could walk away from the bookshelves, his eyes fell onto a shelf holding pictures of, surprisingly, himself. Carefully, he lifted the photo of himself displaying a diploma of some sort, presumably when he graduated from college. In that picture he saw for the first time what he looked like without bruises and scars across his face and realized fully why Sydney had not recognized him at first sight.

Feeling a peculiar skin-tingling sensation, he put that picture down and picked up another. This one was of Sydney standing in front of an older man and woman and beside a younger girl who bore a very similar resemblance to her. This, he guessed, was Sydney’s family: her parents and sister. Both of the girls looked much more like their mother than their father, and they all looked very happy. Michael had yet to see a smile like Sydney wore in that picture on her face, but he hoped that someday she would smile like that again.

“Michael!” Sydney called from the kitchen. Upon hearing her voice, Michael set the picture frame down and made his way to the kitchen area. There, a circular wooden table was set with two places, but Michael noticed there was only food on one plate.

“You’re not eating?” he asked, lowering himself into the chair in front of the food filed plate.

“No, I’m not very hungry,” she told him softly. “You need anything else?”

“Um,” he paused to glance at the table in front of him. Seeing a sandwich, cut in half diagonally, a glass of water, and an apple he shook his head. “No this is fine, thank you.”

“Alright well then I’m going to go change out of my uniform; I’ll be back in a minute if you need something,” she said. Then, she walked quickly from the room.

Once she was gone, Michael bit into his sandwich, which, he noted, tasted incredible compared to the same few meals he received in the hospital. As he ate, he noticed a newspaper sitting on the edge of the table, so he picked it up. When he held it up to read, though, he noticed that the print was very blurry and difficult for him to read without squinting his eyes.

At first, he found this very peculiar and thought that maybe it was a symptom of his still slightly swollen eye and bump on the head. Thinking back, though, he realized he had not read anything while in the hospital. True, he played cards, but the numbers on the card face were much larger than the newspaper print. As was everything else he looked at.

Figuring he’d save himself the trouble of complete confusion he called out, “Sydney, do you happen to remember if I wore reading glasses?”

“Yes you got them shortly before your left,” she called back to him. Feeling slightly relived that he was not losing his mind or suffering ill side affects of his injuries, Michael set the paper aside and reached for the apple Sydney left him.

“Here you go,” Sydney said when she returned to the kitchen. She placed a pair of black-rimmed glasses on the table beside him. He looked up to thank her, but was shocked at her appearance.

“You…you’re wearing pants,” he pointed out in a rather dumbfounded manner. “I’ve never seen a woman in pants…”

“Oh well they’re a new style, much easier to wander around the house in, especially if I’m doing cleaning or something,” she explained.

“Oh I see…well they look nice,” he smiled softly. Then he picked up his reading glasses, thanked her for lunch, and hobbled into the adjoining room to pick a title to read.

After cleaning up the lunch plates, Sydney walked into the family room and saw Michael sitting in his usual chair, glasses balanced on the bridge of his nose, book in hand. Her heart jumped at this vision; he looked exactly as he always had been; exactly as she dreamed him to be. When she received that fateful telegram she thought she would never see him that way again. Now that she was seeing him like that, she did not know whether to be happy or sad. After all, it wasn’t really him she was seeing.

Chapter 9

“So what are you going to be doing this afternoon?” Michael asked when he spotted Sydney hovering in the kitchen doorway.

Sydney jumped slightly when Michael spoke; surprised that the silence surrounding them was suddenly broken. “Oh I um… I guess… I guess I’ll wash some of your clothes to freshen them up. They’ve been hanging around for almost two years so…”

“Two years? It’s been that long?” he asked, surprised.

“Yes… look I’m not really ready to talk about this yet, okay? I need to ease into this whole thing I just… I don’t know what to do,” she sighed, rubbing her hand over her forehead.

“That’s perfectly fine with me,” Michael assured her. “I’ll just sit here and read.”

For the rest of the afternoon, Sydney’s household was eerily silent. The only noise came from Sydney’s footsteps as she walked back and forth from their laundry room to their bedroom or from the pages Michael was turning in the book he was reading. Of course reading may have been a bit of a strong term. Mostly, Michael was pretending to read as he watched Sydney move around the house from the corner of his eye.

More than anything he wanted to talk to her. He wanted to hear her tell them all about their lives. How did they begin to date? How did they fall in love? Where did they share their first kiss? All these things he was dying to know the answer to yet knew he could not ask. He needed to do things on Sydney’s terms and it was clear she was not yet ready.

Around five thirty, Sydney called Michael in to dinner, speaking the first words in a few hours. Michael made his way into the kitchen and found that, once again, two places were set at the table, but only one plate was full of food. “Sydney you need to eat something,” Michael said carefully. On one hand, he did not wish to upset her. Yet, on the other, he had not seen her eat one thing all day and that concerned him.

“I’ll eat something…I’m just not that hungry,” she told him.

Michael sighed heavily as he sat down at the table. “Which is probably my fault, right? You know I could always leave…”

“No, Michael I don’t… I didn’t mean it that way. None of this is your fault, Michael; none of it. You didn’t choose to lose your memory, it just happened. And I don’t want you to go either, alright. I just… I need some time.”

“Alright,” he said softly. Then he picked up his fork and knife and dug into the delicious looking steak. “This is wonderful,” he said after a few bites.

“Well enjoy it,” Sydney cautioned him. “It’s the last one you’ll get until we get some more ration coupons.”

“Ration coupons?” he asked curiously.

“Yeah, didn’t you hear about those? It’s been going on for a while now… we only get so much meat, butter, coffee, and gasoline of course; it’s all going to the war. Now I’m sure there won’t be as much rationing now that the war in Europe is over…but it’ll still continue for a while. I suppose I should start walking to work since its summer and all,” she sighed.

“No, you can use the car; I’m not going anywhere,” he assured her. She nodded softly before scooping a small lump of mashed potatoes onto her plate and pushing them around with her fork, eating only a little bit.

As soon as he had cleaned his plate, Michael picked up one of his crutches to lean on as he walked to the sink with is plate and silverware. Half standing on one foot, half leaning on the counter, Michael set the dishes into the sink and turned on the water.

“What are you doing?” Sydney asked with total confusion.

“Well I figure since you’re letting me stay here and all the least I should do is wash up the dishes,” he said with a soft smile.

“Oh… well alright,” she said cautiously, suddenly feeling rather out of place. She sat there for a minute, unsure of what to do since doing the dishes was usually her job, before walking into the other room and switching on the radio. Once it was tuned to the right channel so she could listen to her favorite program, she picked up the knitting she had left from the night before and sat at her usual position on the couch.

Once Michael was finished with the dishes, he walked back to his chair in the family room and picked up his book once more. In the hospital, his only source of entertainment had been the radio, and while he enjoyed the radio as everyone did, he was interested in a little break up in the radio-every-night routine. Plus, he was rather enjoying the book he was reading and finding that he actually recalled some of the events. He hoped this mental exercising (so to speak) would bring about more memories, preferably those containing the woman sitting across the room from him.

After spending another two hours reading, Michael’s eyes were growing heavy and he began craving a night’s sleep in a peaceful environment. He set his book aside and glanced over to Sydney, who was still knitting as she listened to the radio. He cleared his throat ever so slightly and said, “Well, um, I think I’m going to shower…well I can’t shower; I can’t stand,” he laughed nervously. “So, um, take a bath then and go to bed.”

“Alright,” she said, setting her knitting aside. “I’ll run the bath for you.”

“Oh you don’t have to; you can just point me in the right direction…”

“Well, I’ll get you some towels anyway,” she said. Quickly, she went back into her bedroom and from one of the drawers in the dresser there she pulled out a blue and white striped set of pajamas that had not been touched in quiet some time. Then, she walked to the linen closet in the hall and pulled out a set of blue towels. When she walked into the bathroom, Michael was attempting to crouch down and turn on the faucet, though he was doing so very unsuccessfully.

“Here let me,” she sighed, kneeling down with ease and turning on the water. Once the tub was filling, she separated the two piles in her arms. “Here these are your pajamas,” she said, putting them on the edge of the counter. “And these are your towels.”

“Thank you,” he gave her a soft smile. “Would…would you like me to sleep out on the couch?”

“Oh no,” Sydney shook her head. “No you can’t sleep out there with your leg. You take the bed; I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“Sydney I really can’t-” he tried to protest, but she cut him off.

“Michael its fine; I like the couch; goodnight,” she said softly before slipping out of the bathroom and closing the door behind her.

After bathing and getting out of the tub (which was a struggle with his bum leg), Michael put his pajamas on and sighed contently; it was wonderful to finally be wearing clothing that was his after months of wearing the hospital-issue kind. He found a spare toothbrush in the cabinet above the sink and used Sydney’s toothpaste, hoping she would not mind.

Once fully ready for bed, he hobbled into the bedroom next door to the bathroom. By that point, he was too exhausted to notice Sydney had taken a pillow and blanket from her side of the bed as well as a few of her personal items. He simply let his crutches drop to the floor as he fell onto the mattress. After crawling his way underneath the covers and finding a pillow, he was asleep within minutes, too tired to even notice the sounds of soft crying coming from down the hall.

Chapter 10

The next morning, Michael opened his eyes to see Sydney creeping into the bedroom, already dressed in her nurse’s uniform. She walked over to the dresser and began digging around in a tiny box on top of it, obviously looking for something. As he watched her do this, Michael couldn’t help but yawn, which alerted Sydney to his awake state.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” she said softly.

“You didn’t. It’s alright, though; I need to get up anyway,” he sighed, sitting up slowly. “Did you sleep alright?”

“Yes, fine,” she said in a short tone. “I can make you some breakfast before I leave if you want…”

“No I’ll be fine, thanks,” he assured her.

“Okay… I won’t be home until after four… there’s a little butter, some bread and cheese, fruit and a few other things for lunch. Will you be alright?” she questioned sounding both concerned and nervous.

“I’ll be fine; I promise,” he assured her. She nodded her head then left the bedroom quickly.

Michael did not get out of bed until he heard Sydney leaving the house, thinking he would save himself the trouble of another awkward encounter with her. Once he was hobbling his way into the kitchen, still clad in his pajamas, he spotted a shoe box sitting on the kitchen table with a note on top of it. It was from Sydney informing him that the box contained every letter he sent to her while he was over seas and that, if he wanted, he could read through them. Michael was glad she left this and planned on doing as she suggested, but first he needed something to eat.

As Michael was going through kitchen cabinets searching for plates and bowls and other assorted necessities, he came across a few interesting things. First, he found a recipe book, out of which a few recipes handwritten by Sydney were protruding. Picking up the top one, he found it was a recipe for oatmeal cookies modified for the shortages and rationing they were facing during war times.

Upon further investigation of Sydney’s cabinets he found all the ingredients needed sitting together on a shelf. Figuring Sydney intended to make the cookies but had not yet had the time, Michael decided he would save her the trouble. After all, the instructions were plainly written out on the paper he found and it seemed simple enough. True, he did not have any cooking experience (that he was aware of), but it could not have been too hard…right? Besides, he had plenty of time to kill while figuring it out.

After he ate his breakfast (toast and orange juice), he walked back to the bedroom in hopes of finding clothing to wear besides his pajamas. Of course, the first drawer he opened was filled with Sydney’s undergarments, resulting in him slamming it shut immediately. He then decided the closet was probably a better alternative.

Opening the closet door, Michael was met with the sight of a closet divided in two: half Sydney’s dresses, skirts and shirts, half full of his own clothing. He could not help himself from leafing through some of Sydney’s belongings, hoping they would trigger a memory or two. Sadly they did not, which only made him feel a bit more melancholy.

After changing his clothes and brushing his teeth, Michael returned to the kitchen to set to work on the cookies. It was definitely going to be an interesting day.

~*~

When Sydney arrived home and smelled the familiar aroma of baking in her house she was immediately confused. She quickly walked back to the kitchen and was shocked to find a most peculiar sight: Michael arranging what appeared to be freshly baked cookies onto a plate in the middle of the kitchen table. Interestingly, the fact that he had cookies was not the strange part; the strange part was that he was covered in a very significant amount of white dust.

“W-what are you doing?” she stammered.

“Oh hi…I-I wanted to surprise you. I made cookies,” he smiled proudly.

“You…baked…cookies?” she asked very slowly. Well that did explain the dust – most likely flour.

“Uh huh,” he nodded, still smiling. “I found the recipe up in the cabinet and I tried to make them. I think they turned out alright…try one.”

Slowly and with a suspicious look across her face, Sydney reached out and took a cookie. She brought it too her mouth and took a small nibble of it. It tasted horrible, but she knew this was not Michael’s fault. She knew immediately the recipe he used; it was from a friend of hers who had given it to her with such pride along with a batch of the cookies. Unfortunately for this woman, her batch was equally as horrible as Michael’s, worse even, so Sydney knew that no edible food could come from that recipe.

As these thoughts crossed into her mind and she continued to chew, Sydney could not help but start to laugh. The more she chuckled, the harder it became to stop and soon she was laughing so hard she had to grasp the back of one of the kitchen chairs for support.

“Alright they’re dreadful,” Michael admitted with a sigh. “I tried so hard though! I measured everything twice…”

“No it’s not your fault!” Sydney managed to croak out. “It’s a bad recipe; that’s why I never made it.”

“Oh,” he sighed, leaning harder onto his crutches. So far, that day was turning out to be terrible. Not only had he ruined the cookies and burnt his hand in the process, but he remembered no more than he had that morning. He hoped that reading his own letters would trigger something, but all they did was make him sad to the point where he nearly broke down in tears twice.

“It’s not your fault Michael. This is actually very nice; it’s the thought that counts anyway,” she said, giving him the first real smile he had seen on her in a very long time.

“I guess so… I tried to clean up the kitchen as best I could, too, so I didn’t leave too much of a mess,” he told her, glancing around to make sure he did not see any flour remnants on the counter.

“Except on yourself, I see,” she pointed out. He gave an embarrassed laugh as he looked down at his flour covered clothes. “Why don’t you go clean up and I’ll put the cookies…away,” she suggested. Of course by away she meant in the garbage, but she did not want to say that outright. “C’mon I’ll show you were to put your dirty clothes,” she said, leading the way back to the bedroom where she pointed out the hamper behind the door.

“Thanks,” he smiled softly at her. Then, he tried to move out of the way so she could exit the bedroom, but they had somehow trapped themselves in a corner between the wall and the hamper. They circled around each other once before ending up right back in the position they started in, resulting in them both laughing nervously. As Sydney went to step around Michael, her body brushed up against his and she just couldn’t help herself.

Instead of continuing on her way, she stopped and wrapped her arms around his waist, letting her body mold perfectly into his for the first time in so long. “Don’t…don’t say anything,” she said softly, not wanting him to ruin the moment she desperately needed. He said nothing, though; he merely wrapped his arms around her, hugging her back.

With Sydney in his arms, Michael realized just how perfect they must have been for each other. Their arms locked perfectly around each other and Sydney’s head fit into the crook of his neck. Holding her like that, even if it was just for a moment, was like a memory for Michael; he could feel it deep down inside him, yet he just couldn’t reach it. Not yet, anyway.

After just another moment, Sydney pulled quickly out of his embrace and fled the room, knowing she had held on too long for her heart to take.

Chapter 11

For three days after Sydney and Michael’s hug, the two of them hardly spoke two words to one another. This, of course, was all Sydney’s doing. Every time Michael tried to speak with her she turned away or even left the room. After a full day of this behavior, Michael stopped trying; it was obvious Sydney was both stubborn and uninterested in talking to him for any reason whatsoever.

Since he could not speak with the woman he was sharing his house with, who, at that point, was certainly not his wife, Michael spent the majority of his time reading. He did not attempt to make any more cookies, though he did manage to whip up a fairly decent batch of mashed potatoes while Sydney was working. He also went for a walk around their neighborhood to not only see the sights but to get out and get himself some fresh air, which he had not had for months.

Hobbling around their tidy suburban area, Michael found it was indeed a very pleasant place to live. Children were running around playing now that school was out for the summer. Women were out in the back yard tending to their “Victory gardens”. As a whole, it seemed very nice. Sadly, the only thing that was not nice about it was the icy environment inside his home.

Finally, by Friday afternoon, Michael had more than enough of Sydney’s silent treatment. He was no longer going to let her go silently through life, having the only noise she made be that of the sound of tears and sobbing. In his opinion, she was being ridiculous. He completely understood why she wanted to keep a certain amount of distance and slowly easy into their situation, but she was not slowly easing into anything; she was at a standstill. She could never hope to get used to their situation if she removed herself from it as she was doing. Plus, she was only hurting them both in the process. Maybe if she and Michael talked about their past he would begin to remember some of it. She had no proof that this would not happen, so, in Michael’s view, she should at least try it.

“Sydney please say something,” he begged when she walked in the door. “It’s been three days of silence and I can’t take it anymore! Do you want me to just go away and leave you be? Because that’s how you’re acting.”

“No, I don’t want you to leave Michael,” she said dully. “I just…. I don’t know how to do this!” she shouted, tears of frustration immediately forming in her eyes.

“I don’t know either, Sydney, but I know the way to do it isn’t ignoring me, pretending I don’t exist, and not speaking to me or looking at me. Please can we just…can we talk this evening? About our lives? Just a little bit and if it doesn’t work…then you can go back to being silent until we figure out something that does, okay? Please?”

“Alright,” she agreed with a sigh. Then she walked back into the bedroom to change out of her uniform so she could begin to prepare dinner.

As she was changing, Michael hobbled into the kitchen to set the dinner table. He had to admit he was excited at the prospect of hearing about their life together. So many questions had been gnawing at him in the week since he found out the truth that he was dying to get some answers. In fact, so many things were buzzing around in his mind, he was not sure what to ask first, but he decided it would be best to start at the beginning.

“So what is it that you want to talk about?” Sydney asked as the two of them sat down on the couch, facing one another. The dinner they ate moments earlier was silent much like the rest of them had been, but Michael didn’t mind knowing he was going to get at least some questions answered before the evening was over.

“Well, how about how we met? Now I know you said we were in the same fifth grade class but…well, how did we start to date? It wasn’t in fifth grade was it?”

“No,” Sydney said with a soft smile. “We met the first day of class; we were seated next to each other and you were so mad because you didn’t want to sit next to a girl,” she said, her smile growing slightly larger as Michael laughed at this.

“You were so mean to me that year…always shoving me around and pulling on my ponytail, but eventually we became friends… we didn’t get together until the tenth grade though – our first day of senior high school. I remember I was just standing there after school talking to one of my friends and you walked straight up to me and asked, ‘Do you think we’re old enough to have boyfriends and girlfriends now?’ and I said yes and then you asked me to go steady and I said yes.”

“You’re kidding?” he laughed softly. She shook her head. “Wow…so we’ve been together ever since we were what? Sixteen?”

“Well we were still fifteen then actually,” she clarified. “My father was so mad…he said fifteen was way too young to have a boyfriend, so we didn’t actually go on a real date until the next summer, after we were both sixteen. I was so afraid you were going to break up with me since we couldn’t date and all, but you never did; you said I was well worth the wait,” she said with a soft smile, looking down towards the couch.

“I can see that being true,” he said softly.

“Well anyway, we weren’t together all that time. During our senior year, shortly before Christmas, my father made me break up with you. He said we were too serious and too young and I was so upset – I cried so much. And then you…you found another girlfriend in a few days and I cried even more…”

“Well that wasn’t very nice of me,” Michael concluded, wondering why he had done such a thing. He would have thought his past self would have fought for Sydney with every ounce of fight left in him. In fact, he would have though he would have been camped out on Sydney’s front lawn until her father agreed to let them date once more.

“Well actually it was kind of funny,” she smiled softly. “You see all the other girls in our school were very jealous of me; they all wanted to date you. So you finding another date in such a short period of time really wasn’t that difficult. Anyway, after a week, you broke up to her and went to my father and you said, ‘There I’ve dated someone else and now I know for sure that I don’t want anyone else other than Sydney, so could I have her hand in marriage?’ I think my father turned eight shades of red, green and white,” she laughed softly.

Michael laughed as well; that sounded much more appropriate. “What did he say?”

“Nothing,” Sydney sighed, “but he never forbade me to go out with you again.”

“So…so what happened next? Were we engaged then?” he asked excitedly, dying to know every detail.

Sydney shook her head. “No…no I knew what you had said to him, but I didn’t consider us engaged because you never officially asked me and you didn’t, either, until later that year – after we graduated.”

“When did we get married?”

“February – Valentine’s Day, actually. I remember you didn’t want to get married then… you thought it was too common or something, but I wanted to so badly that you finally agreed,” she said softly. Then, she got off the couch and walked over to the table on which the radio sat. From behind the radio, pinned up against the wall, she pulled two picture frames and handed them.

Michael took the pictures with a soft smile, knowing exactly what they were. The first picture was of Sydney, dressed all in white with a beautiful veil atop her head and flowing perfectly down her back. In her hands, she held a bouquet of flowers and across her face was one of the most beautiful smiles Michael had ever seen. Moving to the next picture, he found Sydney and himself posing just outside a church, both of them smiling. Written on the bottom of the picture was a date: February 14, 1939 – their wedding day.

“You’re beautiful,” he told her softly as he handed the pictures back.

She smiled softly, but said nothing in return. “So anyway, we were married, but we were so busy we hardly had time to notice. We were both in school – college for you, nursing academy for me…and we were living with my parents. This, of course, was my father’s rule. I think he was convinced that as long as we were under his roof even though we were married we would not be participating in any of the usual activities of young married couples… I’m proud to say he was wrong,” she said with a rather amused smile. Michael laughed loudly at this.

“After I got a job, though, and was making some money we moved out into a little place of our own. It wasn’t much, but it was ours. And then the war started and we knew…we knew you’d probably be going. They wouldn’t take you out of school, though, especially since you were going to be a teacher. As soon as you graduated…you enlisted, figuring that would be better than being drafted. And then…you left,” she said sadly, turning away from him.

“Oh Sydney I’m sorry,” Michael sighed, reaching over to gently touch her hand. Luckily, she did not pull it away.

“It’s alright, Michael,” she said softly. “It was inevitable anyway; all the men we knew were getting pulled into the war; it was unavoidable. I just… I think that’s enough talking for right now, alright?”

“Of course,” he agreed. She had given him more information he had expected and he was grateful for it. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” she said in return. “For making me do this.” Then, she leaned over and gave him a very gentle kiss on the cheek before getting off the couch and walking into the kitchen.

Chapter 12

Though for the rest of the evening Sydney stayed fairly silent, the atmosphere in their house was entirely different. No longer did Michael fear catching Sydney’s eye, which before would have resulted in her crying or leaving the room. Now if this happened she would smile softly at him before turning back to the knitting in her lap.

While Michael had a book in his hands and his reading glasses on, he had not turned a page in nearly an hour. Instead of reading, his thoughts were consumed with the information he had received from Sydney. He was grateful for the amount of information she had told him, but wished she had divulged more. Actually, more than that, he wished he could remember it from his own point of view. He was dying to know what their first kiss had been like… their first date…their first dance – anything. He wanted to know all of it and refused to be satisfied until he did. Sadly, he would just have to be patient for it all to return, as difficult as that was for him.

Later that night, Michael was changing into his pajamas in the bedroom while sitting on the edge of the bed since he could not stand. As he was changing his shirt, Sydney appeared in the bedroom doorway and nearly screamed at the sight of his unclothed abdomen. “I’ll…um, come back,” she said, quickly averting her eyes.

“No it’s alright…see,” he said, quickly putting on his shirt and buttoning two of the buttons on it.

“Okay,” she said quietly. Blushing the entire time, she hurried over to her dresser, grabbed something, and then returned to the hallway, where Michael heard her walk into the bathroom and shut the door behind her.

Once fully changed into his pajamas, Michael switched off the lamp beside his bed and crawled beneath the bedcovers. He had only been lying there for a few minutes when he heard the bedroom door creak open. Opening his eyes he saw a dim figure with a white pillow clutched to her chest. She cleared her throat softly and asked, “Would you mind if I…”

“No, no of course not,” he said, sitting up. “I’ll just go to the couch.”

“No,” she stopped him before he got out of the bed. “No, it’s fine,” she said softly. Then, she set her pillow down on her side of the bed and slipped beneath the covers. After she was lying flat on her back, she reached over and felt for Michael’s hand. Once she found it, she laced their fingers together and held his hand tightly. “Goodnight Michael,” she said softly.

“Goodnight Sydney,” he echoed.

~*~

The next morning when Michael awoke, he opened his eyes to see Sydney sleeping beautifully beside him. Though they had dropped hands during the night, they were still laying side-by-side, which Michael loved immediately. After just another minute of lying there watching her, Sydney opened her eyes and began to stretch.

“Good morning,” Michael smiled at her.

“Oh good morning,” she said, suddenly slightly embarrassed that she was beside him in bed.

“So, um, it’s Saturday. What do you usually do on Saturdays?” he asked.

“Shopping because I get our ration coupons on Friday on my lunch break,” she explained. “You’re welcome to come with me if you want…just to, you know, get out of the house.”

“I’d love to,” he smiled. While grocery shopping was definitely not a man’s task, Sydney did have a point; he was desperate to get out of the house and dependant on her to take him someplace since not only was he unfamiliar with the surrounding area, but he could only walk so far on his crutches and thus was dependant on her to drive them.

After making breakfast and cleaning it up, Sydney and Michael took turns getting ready to leave. As Michael was combing his hair in the bathroom mirror and making sure his shirt collar was perfectly straight, Sydney appeared in the bathroom doorway. “I’ll be done in a second,” Michael assured her.

“No, not is not that I just…well, I thought you might want this,” she said softly. Then, from beneath the collar of her dress she pulled out a long chain. On it was a gold band; a wedding ring. “It’s yours,” she explained at his confused expression. “You left it with me because you didn’t want to lose it on the battlefields of Europe somewhere. So I’ve been keeping it safe for you.”

“You…you’d be okay with me wearing it?” he asked cautiously as he took the ring from her. She nodded her head with a soft smile and then walked back to the bedroom to find her shoes.

Michael stared at the gold band in his hand for almost a full minute before pulling it off the chain and slipping it on to his left ring finger. It felt good having it there; almost as if he belonged there with Sydney as his wife.

“Ready to go?” Sydney asked with a smile.

“Yeah,” he said softly. Then, he followed her out to the car.

Not surprisingly, the grocery store was packed full of women, some wrangling children, others simply trying to find everything on the lists in their hands. As Michael hobbled his way along behind Sydney, he could not help but feel extraordinarily out of place. Aside from the little boys with their mothers and the man behind the cash register, he was the only male in the store.

They spoke very little as they shopped; Sydney was busy collecting items on her list and putting them into the basket slung over her arm. Michael, on the other hand, was busy observing the shelves surrounding him and seeing different items for what felt like the first time.

As they approached the counter where Sydney could get her allotted amount of butter and meat, a woman who apparently recognized Sydney approached with a smile on its face. “Sydney! It’s been a few weeks! How have you been?” the woman asked.

“Oh I’ve been pretty good,” Sydney smiled at her softly. Then she turned to face Michael and do some introductions. “Michael this is Susan Hennessey; she lives down the street. Susan this is my husband, Michael.”

Michael smiled softly at Sydney’s use of the word husband. “It’s nice to meet you Susan,” he said with a polite nod, unable to shake her hand with his crutches.

Susan looked rather shocked. “Sydney this is your husband? I thought he…”

“Well, actually he’s been in the hospital with a bit of memory loss,” Sydney explained to her.

“Oh I see,” Susan nodded, her expression turning to a rather sad one. “Well its nice to finally meet you Michael. I’d best be on my way, though. I’ll see you later,” she said before leaving quickly.

“C’mon,” Sydney said, touching Michael’s arm lightly. “Let’s finish shopping; I want to show you something when we get home.”

Michael nodded with agreement and continued his hobbling behind her.

Chapter 13

“So what is it that you wanted to show me?” Michael asked once all of their groceries had been put away in their proper positions.

“Well just a little something. Go sit on the couch I’ll be there in a sec,” she told him. Michael nodded and limped his way there. Now that his cast had been off a full week, he was trying to use the crutches less and put a bit of pressure on his broken leg, but it was difficult since not only was the muscle very weak, but he was a little bit afraid of putting too much pressure on it too soon and rebreaking his bone.

“Here you go,” Sydney smiled when she returned with a rather large photo album. She placed it in Michael’s lap before sitting down beside him.

“What’s all this?” he asked before flipping open the book.

“Well its basically all the pictures we have that aren’t framed around the house. Some of them are of your childhood; some are of mine and some are us together,” she explained.

Michael nodded in understanding before opening up the book. The first page contained pictures of himself as a baby and as a young toddler. In the pictures with him was an adult couple, who he would not have recognized if it wasn’t for the adult male looking surprisingly like himself in his present form. “Those are your parents,” Sydney said softly. “I never met them; they died before we met.”

“Do you know what happened to them?” he asked softly while still examining their picture.

“No, you never said. They died together, though, in some sort of accident I think,” she told him.

“Oh,” he sighed softly. Then, he turned the page to find pictures of Sydney in her youth. “Now weren’t you adorable,” he teased.

“Yes well,” she grumbled softly at some of the pictures. In them, her parents had clearly gone overboard with whatever lace-encrusted clothing they had purchased to her. She was mildly horrified that such an outfit existed let alone was on her. The only excuse she had was that she was barely a few months old at the time and thus clearly not in control of whatever was put on her body.

As Michael turned to the next page and then the next the two of them were growing older. No longer was he in pictures with his parents, but instead with another woman, who he presumed to be an aunt. Sydney entered into his pictures as well, though he had to laugh at the displeased expression on his face when his photo-self was looking at her.

“This was our first real date,” Sydney pointed out, tapping one of the pictures where they looked the oldest, at least compared to their infancy stages. “We went to a drive-in movie and my father gave you a threatening speech about how you needed to be in the front seat while I was in the back…”

“You’re joking?” he laughed softly.

“Sadly I’m not,” she sighed. Then she reached over and turned the page to find more pictures from their high school years of life. “This was our first formal dance…and this was a party over the summer – the fourth of July, I believe. And then this-”

“What’s this one?” Michael asked, pointing to a picture of them located in the corner of the opposite page. In it, Sydney was wearing a sleeveless sundress and he was wearing equally casual attire.

“Oh that was right before our senior trip. We were supposed to drive up into the mountains for a day, right after graduation, with another couple…but the guy, Jim I think it was, got really sick and his girlfriend didn’t want to go without him. So we just went by ourselves….why are you laughing?” she asked curiously at the chuckling grin Michael had across her face.

Michael did not answer her question directly; he wasn’t sure he could. The fact of the matter was he remembered the day she was talking about. He had no idea how or why he did, but looking at that picture was like reading a title on one of his books – he immediately knew the plot by heart.

“You wanted to go hiking…which was stupid, because you hate nature, but you wanted to go, so we made plans and ended up going by ourselves. We got there to this God-forsaken cabin that was just one giant room with a worn bed, a table, chairs and a potbelly stove. I remember being so glad we didn’t have to spend the night there, which would have been horrible, not to mention a death sentence from your father,” he laughed softly. When speaking, he was in his own zone; he did not even notice the tears welling in Sydney’s eyes or the gaping look on her face.

“We went for a hike and of course your feet started hurting right away. We didn’t turn back, though, and that was our mistake. It started raining so suddenly…and it wasn’t even raining – it was pouring absolutely in sheets and it was freezing too. Somehow the temperature had plummeted and I could see our breath as we hurried back to the cabin.

“We were soaked and so cold… I don’t think I’d ever been that cold in my entire life. Immediately I started taking off my clothes and you yelled at me, asking what I was doing. We had no way of lighting a fire, not that either of us knew how, so our only hope of getting warm was the bed. So I took off all my clothes – all my clothes -- and climbed inside and told you to do the same. Naturally, you wouldn’t.

“You just paced around the room, ranting and shivering… finally I told you that if you didn’t get your wet clothes off you were probably going to die before you even got dry. I guess you realized I was right because you slowly took off your shoes and your dress and everything else and climbed into that bed…and I remember you said, ‘See what you’ve done. Now you have to marry me, Michael Vaughn, because I only ever wanted my husband to see me this way.’ And I said-”

“‘That’s okay I was already planning on it,’” she interjected rather tearfully.

“Yeah,” he said softly.

“Michael,” Sydney exhaled with disbelief, a few tears beginning to slip down her cheeks. “How…how did you…” her voice drifted off, unable to say the question she was thinking of.

“I don’t know,” he said honestly. “I really don’t… I just looked at that picture and suddenly I remembered it all.”

“Michael,” she sobbed slightly as she flung herself forward and wrapped her arms around his neck, giving him as tight a hug as she possibly could.

“Shh, its okay,” he tried to soothe her tears though obviously it was not working at all, for she continued to sob just as hard as before. When she pulled back from hugging him after a minute, she pressed her lips up against his, giving him a kiss for the first time in nearly two years.

Michael kissed her back and pulled her body closer to his. Suddenly he was remembering lots of things, like the way she giggled when he ran his hands through her hair as they were kissing. And the way she had a very ticklish spot on her left side, that would always make her squirm and howl with laughter if Michael ever touched it accidentally. He far from knew everything, but the little memories he had were more than enough to sustain him.

“Sydney I love you,” he sighed, resting his forehead against hers.

“I love you too…so much,” she choked out, giving him another hug. Then, after a moment, she pulled back and set the photo album aside before standing up and requesting, “Come with me.”

“To where?” he asked with a slight laugh.

She leaned down and gave him another long kiss. “Where do you think?”

Chapter 14

“I can’t believe that was your first memory,” Sydney laughed softly. The two of them were still lying in bed after spending the afternoon getting to know each other once more in a more intimate sense. During that time they had spoke very little, yet used their lips a lot.

“Why’s that?” he asked with a soft chuckle.

“Because! People are going to ask what you remembered first and it’s us…naked,” she said while blushing softly.

“Well obviously we won’t tell them that!” he insisted with a laugh. “No one knows that happened.”

“And it’s going to stay that way,” she warned. Then she shook her head slightly. “God I was so nervous that day…taking off my clothes. I had never been naked before…”

“Really? You showered with your clothes on?” he asked with a cheeky grin.

Sydney shoved him lightly. “No, you know what I mean. I was terrified and you just made it all seem so casual… you took your clothes off without a second though.”

“Well I had very good incentive namely being that I was freezing to death,” he emphasized.

“True,” she laughed softly. “That was the first time I’d ever seen a man naked,” she admitted quietly.

“Same here…except a woman naked, of course,” he told her with a smile.

“Really?” she asked sounding surprised.

“Of course Sydney! Who else would I have seen?” he asked with a laugh. She shrugged her shoulders. “Well you’re the only one… the only one I want to see too,” he said, pulling her closer to him and giving her a soft kiss.

She giggled softly. “You know what that day also reminds me of? Later that summer…at the drive in…,” she said slowly, hoping he would remember.

“Oh my god Nadia!” he gasped with a laugh, referring to Sydney’s sister and her…escapades.

“Yes,” Sydney laughed both from the incident in question and from happiness that he recalled.

After the two of them escaped the bed at the cabin that day and redressed in their clothes once they were dry, Sydney fretted the entire way home. She was upset thinking that she was the only woman in the world who had let a man who was not yet her husband see her in such a state, even if there were extenuating circumstances around the incident. Michael tried to assure her that she was being irrational – there was no way she was the only woman in the entire world who had done such a thing; that was statistically impossible. Sydney, however, seemed unconvinced until a few months later at the drive-in.

Michael and Sydney were their in their car watching a movie as usual. As they were doing this, they noticed another car in the drive-in lot (which was actually surprisingly empty at the time) making suspicious…movement. Michael noticed the rocking car first and then pointed it out to Sydney, who burst out laughing while blushing. It was fairly obvious what was going on inside the vehicle and while watching the movie they would occasionally glance over to see if the two had emerged from below the seats yet. When they did, Sydney was utterly floored to see her very own younger sister attempting to fix her very messy hair. Nadia, who was just eleven months younger, and her boyfriend were apparently enjoying themselves much more than the movie.

At the sight of this, Sydney had been horrified while Michael found it utterly hysterical. He immediately pointed out that she had nothing to worry about. Not only was she clearly not the only woman revealing her body to a man before marriage, but her younger sister was doing it as well. Besides, Michael and Sydney’s less-than-clothed incident had been purely innocent and simply a circumstance of freezing rain.

“That was hilarious,” Michael laughed.

“I know,” Sydney sighed. “We should have told her what we saw, though; then she wouldn’t have been as smug.”

“Oh well,” Michael sighed.

After laying there for a moment in silence, Sydney reached over and stroked Michael’s cheek gently with her fingertip. Then, she leaned over and kissed the still slightly discolored portion of his eye before kissing the scar on his brow. “I’m glad you’re beginning to look like you again,” she said softly.

“Me too…man that was scary when I had that giant purple eye,” he laughed softly.

“You’re tellin’ me,” she laughed softly. “At least it won’t leave a scar…and I think this one on your forehead will fade nicely.”

“Too bad we can’t say the same for my back,” he sighed, knowing burn scars would never go away. Fade, perhaps, but never vanish entirely.

Sydney frowned. “It makes me sad… I loved your back.”

“Well it’s still there,” he promised her with a laugh.

“I know,” she smiled. “And I’m very glad too.” She gave him a kiss before nuzzling his face against his. “So what else do you remember?”

“Not everything yet, but a lot of you – lots of us, too,” he promised her.

“Good,” she smiled. Then she lay her head down on his shoulder and cuddled up to him. Truthfully, she could not entirely believe that she had her husband back with her. The previous two weeks had been too much of a blur; it had not sunk in yet. Still, she was glad to have him back. Actually, glad was not the proper term; no words in the world could have described how happy and thrilled she was to have him back in her life and while he did not have his full memory back, she knew that in time it would come. Even if it did not all return, though, the fact that he remembered her and significant milestones in their life together was more than she could ask for.

“Hey Michael?” she began softly. “Do you think we can have a baby soon?”

Michael smiled inwardly and wrapped his arms around her. “A baby sounds wonderful. As soon as I can walk on my leg again I’m going to find a job as a teacher and then once I’m the one making money for us we will definitely have a baby.”

Sydney grinned as she rolled herself over and looked him in the eye. “That sounds like a fabulous plan.”

Michael couldn’t help but laugh softly at her excitement. “Well I’m glad you think so.”

Epilogue

“Oh come onnnn,” Michael groaned inwardly as he paced back and forth, back and forth, back and forth in front of one tiny row of chairs. Surprisingly, he was the only father-to-be waiting in the maternity ward’s waiting area. He expected at least one other male to be there with him, but on that Sunday morning at 2 a.m. he was the only one there and, in his opinion, he had been there far too long. How long did labor take anyway?

The way Sydney was screaming and crying and hitting him while they were driving to the hospital, he would have though the baby would have been born as they were walking in the door. Sadly, this was not the case. That was nearly five hours earlier and no baby had been had, at least not yet.

He was forced to wait in the waiting room too, which, in his opinion was utterly absurd. He was not a patient person and the doctors and nurses were not keeping him updated on Sydney’s progress, which did not easy is anxiety in the least. He needed to know what was going on; he needed to know if they were alright.

It had been just over a year since that fateful day in another hospital when Sydney told Michael the truth about who he was. Ever since then, Michael had been on a permanent recovery path, trying to regain every lost memory. By that point, a year later, he was at about ninety percent. He could remember only bits and pieces from his childhood but this did not concern him, for most of the population lost those memories as they grew older. He did, however, recall every moment he spent with Sydney from the first day they met, through their courtship, marriage, and first few years as man and wife. The only thing still missing from his mind was all the time he spent overseas with the war. He vividly recalled the day he said goodbye to his wife, but everything after that became a bit fuzzy. That was alright, though; the most important part of his memories were intact and he would be satisfied with that.

Ever since regaining his memory Michael had been a eleventh and twelfth grade English teacher and though he had only worked for one full school year, he loved his job more than anything. At that moment, though, the only thing he wanted was to find out whether or not his future son or daughter was a healthy little baby.

After pacing for the billionth time, he could stand it no longer and plowed right through the doors separating the waiting room from Sydney’s hospital room. He was going to be there when his child was born whether they liked it or not.

“Sir what are you doing?”

“Sir you should go back to the waiting area.”

Michael ignored these requests and made his way right to Sydney’s room, where she was in quite a state with doctors and nurses milling around her as she screamed loudly. “Michael…what are you…doing?!” she managed to grunt.

“I want to be here. I want to see our baby…its not here yet is it?!” he asked cautiously looking around the room.

“Does it look…like its…here?!” she demanded, gesturing towards her still enormous belly.

Feeling rather silly, Michael walked over to her bed and picked up her hand in his and squeezed it tightly. “You’re doing wonderful,” he offered hopefully.

“Shut up!” she grunted at him before letting out a long scream. As the doctor instructed her to push, Sydney continued to scream, clutching Michael’s hand so hard he was afraid it would break. He was not focused on the pain, though, more on the events taking place at the opposite end of Sydney’s bed.

“Oh my god! It’s a baby! It’s coming out!” he said with total amazement.

With this rather obvious comment, Sydney reached up and grabbed the front of Michael’s shirt. She pulled him down eye level with her and grunted in a very aggravated tone, “I noticed!”

With one more push from Sydney, little baby Vaughn entered the world and Michael practically started jumping up and down. “It’s a boy! We have a son!” he exclaimed happily. “Oh my god… I have to sit down…”

“This is why we make the father’s wait in the waiting room,” a nurse pointed out, rather annoyed, before pushing a chair underneath him. After the nurses cleaned up the little boy, they wrapped him in a blanket before handing him off to Michael, who was still rather shell-shocked.

“Look at him…he’s here…he’s perfect,” Michael sighed, clutching the wailing baby to his chest. “Look at him…we…we made him…”

“We?!” Sydney asked, sounding exhausted yet indignant.

“Okay, you,” Michael submitted. Then, he handed their little bundle over to Sydney, who took her child with a sleepy smile. “I love you both,” he said, kissing each of their foreheads in turn.

“I love you too,” Sydney smiled at him.