By stephanie meyer

I don’t own them. I don’t claim to. It’s just for fun.
 
 

Diane was having a rather spirited argument with the police detective. "What
do you mean, abandonment?"

"Dr. Grad, so far we haven't found any evidence of foul play. No stolen
credit cars, no car, no body."

Diane shifted Emily higher up on her hip. "MY husband would not leave me or
my daughter!"

"Look, what do you want me to do?"

"Get off your lazy ass and do something! Isn’t it bad enough that innocent
people get mowed down in this
city? You'd think that the police department could at least find one person!
You couldn't find your ass with
two hands and a flash light!" Diane's voice carried over the bustle of the
squad room.

"Would you rather be abandoned or widowed, lady? If we haven’t dug up a
body, you still have hope! Or did
you do him in?" The detective had had enough of the pushy woman. He didn't
see her fist until it slammed into
his jaw.

"Go to hell." With that, she stalked out the door.

The detective rubbed his jaw. "She's got a mean right hook."

"She's rahter volatile, " his partner commented.

"You know her?"

"She was a witness to a murder a few years back. Saw some kid pump seven
bullets into her friend."

"Nasty."

"Best part, she attacked the kid in the ER after we caught up with him. They
had to haul her away. I would not
make that woman mad."

Phillip was not surprised to see Diane and her daughter curled up on his
office couch.

"Diane." She opened her eyes. "Any word?"

"No. The police are useless. They think Billy left me..." a tear trickled
down her cheek.

County called her. Why was county calling her?"

"Diane Grad?" The desk clerk asked.

"Yes."

"One of the doctor's need to talk to you."

Diane approached the man the clerk had gestured to. "You needed to see me?"

"Your husband was brought in with server trauma to the abdomen and head. We
tried for forty minutes..."

"Stop. I know this speech." She drew a shaky breath. "I want to see him."

She looked at the sheet-covered gurney. "Could you? My hands.."

The sheet was pulled back. Diane blinked. "That's not my husband."

"His id listed him as Billy Kronk."

"Well this man is not my husband."

Three floors up, a man was being discharged. "I am outta here."

"Has anymore of your memory returned, Mr. Grayson."

"Nope. My best bet is to go back home to St. Louis and see if anything jogs
it."

Diane was doggedly trying to finish her last chart. The TV at the nurses’
station was so loud! She was having
a hard time focusing. Of course, that wasn't saying much. The last six
months had taken their toll. She was
haggard and looked it. She was about to ask them to turn it down when she
heard his voice. She looked up
and there he was on the TV.

"Turn that up!"

The nurse looked at Dr. Grad in surprise.

"'..I just saw a kid I could help and I did.'" Billy's picture faded from
the screen as the news anchor reappeared.
"St. Louis Children's Hospital reports the boy is in stable condition,
largely due to Peter Grayson's heroic
efforts. In other news..."

The television faded out as the room darkened and spun.

"Dr. Grad!" A pair of arms caught her as her knees buckled.

"I’m alright. I just got dizzy."

Diane made three calls from her office. The first was to her sitter to bring
Emily to the hospital. The second was
information for St. Louis. The third was to an airline.

The first message Phillip found when he checked his email was a rather odd
one from Diane telling him she'd
be gone for a while. Now what?

Peter Grayson opened his apartment door. A thin, tired looking woman holding
a sleeping toddler on her hip
stood wearily in the hall.

"Bi..I mean Peter Grayson?"

"Yes?"

"I'm.. do you recognize me?"

"Who are you?" Her eyes filled with tears. "Hey, don't cry."

"I ..." her words faded as she began to sway.

He reached out to catch her. "You better come in. You don't look so good."
He led her to the couch.

"I’m sorry. I’m just so tired. To answer your question. My name is Diane
Grad. This is my daughter, Emily.
Emily Kronk. I’m your wife."

"Whoa. My wife? I don't remember a lot of stuff, but I think I would
remember being married."

"Billy..."

"Who's Billy?"

"You are!" A strangled sob caught in Diane’s throat. Feeling her mother's
shift in breathing, Emily awoke. She
gazed around her new surroundings, puzzlement turning to delight as he spied
her father for the first time in six
months. She lunged toward him. He caught her awkwardly.

"Daddy!" She clung to him.

He looked at the child in amazement. "Daddy?"

He gave Diane and Emily his bed for the night. Why he did, he didn't know.
For all he knew she was a nut. But
he didn't think she was nuts. Tragic, yes, crazy, no. He heard a noise in
the bathroom. A choking noise. He got
up and padded in.

He found Diane retching into the basin. "You ok?"

She swallowed. "I will be. I'm just a little sick, that's all."

He watched her wash out her mouth. "Do you want something to eat? Or drink?"

"No, I’ll just go back to sleep." She moved past him, faltering a little. He
steadied her, once again noticing how
thin she was. "How long ahs it been since you've eaten?"

"I don't remember. I tend to forget about myself."

"You’re going to eat." He took hr into the kitchen and sat her down. He made
her eat and watched her as she
did.

He had to go to work the next day. "You can stay. We need to talk when I get
back." He looked up to see her
standing in his doorway, cad only in a black hawks t-shirt, holding her
still sleepy daughter. He had an odd
feeling of déjà vu, but shook it off.

Diane had scrubbed the apartment clean. Emily watched her mother scrub
floors from the living room, her way
barred by a baby gate Diane had brought.

"Yes, Mommy’s being silly isn't she? She just can't stay still." Diane stood
up only to double over momentary.
"Damn. Mommy needs to go see a doctor, huh, baby girl."

He got back late. She was asleep on the couch. Emily was fast asleep in a
portable play pen thingie. She was a
doll, even if he didn't believe she was his daughter. He hated to wake Diane
up, but he had to. He gently shook
her. "Hey."

She sat up and stretched. He had to fight to keep his eyes on her face. "Hi.
What time is it?"

"Around one."

"You’re back late."

"Friday. You know how it is."

They were inches apart. "Not really. I was..."

Her words were cut off as he kissed her.

He was still asleep. She had her back to him. She knew last night had been
about alcohol and lust. She had just
craved his touch so much. She knew he still didn't remember. She heard him
move.

"Diane..."

"I know. You were drunk. I was here. It doesn’t mean anything to you."

With that she climbed out of bed and began dressing. "I'll just grab my
things and Emily, and we'll leave."

He got up and pulled on his boxers and pants. "I didn't say that!"

"I can't stay here this close to you anymore without..."

"Without what?"

"Without loving you! You and Emily were, are my life! I still have to take
care of her! I can't do that if I’m
trying to live like this. I love you and I always will. But if you can't be
my husband, then you can't be in my
life!"

"Diane..." His protest was cut short when she doubled over in pain. "Diane!"
He reached her just as he began
to cough up blood. "Hold on. We’ll get help. You're going to be fine."

A nurse was trying to talk to him, "Sir, if you could tell me her name?"

"Diane. Diane Grad. Is she going to be ok?"

"Are you her husband?"

"No, yes, I'm her friend I guess. What's wrong with her?"

"Do you know who her emergency contact is?"

He tightened his grip on a very frightened Emily. "I don't know. She works
in a hospital in Chicago. Their chief
of staff, maybe."

"Which hospital?'

"Chicago Hope. Phillip Waters." Where the hell had that come from?

"We're doing everything we can now. Why don't you have a seat?"

As he sat there rocking a sniffling toddler, flashes assaulted his mind. One
image stood out clearly. *Him in a
waiting room. "I can't lose her, Aaron I can't live without her."* It had
been when Emily was born. She’d
abrupted and was hemorrhaging. Kate and Dennis...

The memory ended. But he has remembered his daughter's birth. His daughter.
Diane, his wife. He loved her.
The realization left him stunned. Who was he? He guessed he was who she said
he was, Billy Kronk."

Phillip was in a board meeting when he got the call. "My God. Book me the
next flight out." He put the phone
down. "Excuse me, there’s been an emergency."

When Diane woke up she saw her husband sprawled in a chair next to her bed.
Behind him, she saw her
daughter sleeping in a hospital crib. He noticed she was awake.

"Hey, baby doll. I'm here." He smoothed her hair back and held her hand.

"Billy?"

"Yeah, I’m here. I remembered something."

"What?"

"Oh lots. The most important was how scared I was when Emily was born."

"You remember us?"

"I can't believe I forgot." He kissed her. "Now get some sleep. You've got a
bleeding ulcer."

"Wonderful."

Phillip found a very pale Diane sitting in a hospital bed.

"Phillip, what?"

"The hospital called me. What the hell are you doing here?"

"Ah, Phillip, that's kinda my fault," a voice said from the doorway.

Phillip turned around. "Billy?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"So for the past six months you've been living her in St. Louis, with no
memory of your past?"

"Pretty much so."

"What jogged your memory?"

"Seeing Diane so sick. Thinking she was dying. Emily's birth just sorta
dawned on me and the rest just sorta
appeared."

"How did you get here?"

"I woke up in a hospital remembering nothing. I showed up with id saying I
was Peter Grayson of St. Louis."

"After you disappeared, county called Diane into id a body. He had your id."

"Man. She must’ve flipped."

"I should have kept a closer eye on her and realized she was developing an
ulcer."

Billy gazed at the sleeping form of his wife. He and Phillip were sitting in
Diane’s room. Emily was still asleep,
only now in her father’s arms. "Don't blame yourself, Phillip. She's good at
hiding things. Did you know that
until that incident with the guy who kept his wife on life support donated
her heart, and the guy came back in
with an problem that she was still suicidal over Alan’s death?"

"What?"

"She blamed herself. You missed her wigging out. She holed up in lab for
three days straight. Then she pulled
a gun on Kate. She tried to go home, but Dennis found her wandering the
streets, babbling about how Alan's
death was her fault, that they wouldn't have been on that train if it hadn't
been for her. He tried to talk to her,
but she ran off. I don't think that anybody, except maybe Kate and Dennis,
realized how bad off she was. She
might have looked like she was coping later on, but she wasn't. She told me
she'd go home every night and
swallow whatever she had in the house. Then she'd changed her mind as soon
as she had and throw them
back up."

"My God."

"Yeah. She freaked me out when she told me. It's the last secret she kept
from me."

"I had no idea."

"Nobody did. So don't feel bad if you missed an ulcer and her not eating."

"She hasn't been eating?"

"She lost about twenty pounds. You know how thin she was anyway. You can
count her ribs looking at her."

"Oh, Diane."

"Yeah." Billy hugged his daughter tighter.

Phillip managed to convince the hospital to let them discharged Diane. She
wanted to go back to Chicago.
Phillip wanted her safely tucked in to a bed in Chicago Hope where he and
the rest of the staff could keep an
eye on her. He also wanted Lisa to take a look at Billy to see if a cause
for his amnesia could be found. He,
Billy, Diane, and Emily flew out of St. Louis together. Perhaps a little too
soon.

The gurney rolled in to Chicago Hope’s ER followed by two worried doctors.
The resident receiving was a bit
stunned when Dr. Watters entered carrying a little girl, rattling off stats.
"She's bleeding out again, aggravated
ulcer. She's blown her stitches. We’re going straight to the or. Page Austin
and Wilkes. And Catera."

Billy was holding and o2 mask over his wife's face. "Just breath, Diane.
You're going to be fine. Just breath.
Breath, Diane, breath."

Phillip scrubbed in. Lisa found Billy and Emily in the observation room.

"Billy!" she exclaimed. "What happened?"

"Bleeding ulcer. We shouldn't have moved her so soon."

"You couldn't have known. Now she's getting the best. How are you feeling?"

"Worried."

"Phillip wants me to take a look at you."

"I'm not the one who's hurt."

"Billy, standing here won't help her."

"It will help me."

"Then let me take a look here."

"Whatever."

Diane was out of surgery and stable. Lisa was trying to coljouiol Billy into
a CT.

"Billy be reasonable..."

"I am going to be there when she wakes up."

"If she wakes up and finds out that you’ve been here eight hours and I
haven't done a scan, she'll kill me."

"I doubt that."

"You haven't been around her the last six months. She perfected the glare of
death. The nurses cower when
she's working."

"Fine. I'm going."

Diane woke up to see Kate Austin sitting next to her bed, reading some
notes.

"Kate?"

"Diane!" The woman looked up. "You're awake!"

"Where's Billy?"

"He's talking to the police. Something about a series of muggings. Lisa
already took a CT and ran a neural
check. He's fine."

"A serial mugging?"

"Yeah. Whoever it is mugs one person and plants the id from the last victim
on the new one. Most of them
don't live."

"Billy just must have a hard head, huh?"

"You said it, I didn't."

"Where's Emily?"

"With Aaron.. He said something about sucking on his brain?"

"His model of the brain. Alicia used to suck on it when she was teething."

"I guess it's a tradition then."

"Yeah. So what happened to me?"

"Internal bleeding."

"No wonder I feel like shit. Are you on call?"

"No, I'm just catching up on some paperwork. I thought I'd keep an eye on
you in post op."

"Thanks. What about Sarah?"

"Actually, her nanny should be dropping her by right about..."

"Hi Mom!" Sara bounced into the room.

"...now. Hey, Kiddo. Calm down. Diane just woke up."

"Sorry. What happened?" Sarah leaned on Diane's bed. She liked Diane and
Billy. She guessed they were
Mom's friends. Diane had spent a lot of time with her mom lately. And she
adored Emily.

"Oh, I got a nasty infection and lost some blood."

"An ulcer," Sarah said knowingly.

"And how would you know?" Kate asked.

"Our music teacher has one. She complains about it all the time."

Kate eventually steered her daughter out of the room to allow Diane to get
some rest. Billy and Emily crashed
in her room. Emily slept in her mother's arms. Billy gazed at his wife and
daughter. How cold he have forgotten
her? He didn't have all of his memories back, but he had enough.