Wonderful
AUTHOR: Lucky.
DISCLAIMER: Except for the creations of the author, all characters, characterizations, situations, and locations described in this unsolicited and not-for-profit work of fiction are the property of ABC Television, Capitol Cities, Inc., Steven Bochco Productions, the many talented people who created the world of NYPD Blue, and the actors who have made that world such a lively place. The author would also like to extend her personal gratitude to Mr. Scott Cohen for his light, his vitality, his inspiration, and for being such a compelling muse. Thank you, sir.
FEEDBACK: To Lucky
"Hi."
"Hello."
Diane shuffled her feet around for a second, then decided to cut right to it. "Do you... remember me at all?"
"No, but if it makes you feel better, you're the first person who's intimated that I should." He smiled.
Please don't be nice to me. I really don't deserve it. At a loss for anything else, she began to spit out names. "Don Kirkendall... Jill... Yvonne Ruiz... Martens... Gomez... Are any of these names ringing any bells for you?"
His brow crossed gently as he watched her stumble through the unfamiliar names, then, "Are any of those names yours?" Diane shook her head a little and he gave her another kind smile. "Then let's start at the beginning." He pressed his fingertips to his chest. "My name... apparently... is Harry Denby. What's yours?"
"Detective Russell," she supplied quickly.
He shook his head slightly, keeping his eyes on hers. "'Detective' is a station, not a name."
She gathered her breath. It's now or never... "Diane... Diane Russell."
"Diane Russell."
She watched him carefully as he mulled the name over in his mind.
Nothing.
Then he flapped a finger at her and her back went rigid and cold.
"And you said we work together?"
He doesn't remember at all... Diane forcibly cleared her lungs and nodded. "Yeah."
He tucked his chin down a little and looked through his lashes at her. "Anything... else?"
Her anger flashed before she could think and she spoke through a clenched jaw. "No, Denby."
He put his hands up. "Whoa... okay, okay. I'm just... making sure I know where I'm coming from, here." He cocked a conciliatory smile at her. "Okay?"
She rubbed her forehead nervously, as if she could wipe away her own memory. "Right... okay." She glanced around a little, acutely aware of his eyes on her, suddenly realizing that she was still backed up against the door. Staying close to the wall, still avoiding his gaze, she circled the room until she came up next to the window beside the bed. She looked down into the parking lot, watching the first spring sunlight bounce off the tops of the cars, starting a little at the sound of his voice.
"Diane?"
She snapped about. "Hm..? What?"
His face was crossed with confusion and it took her a second to realize that it was a reflection. Then he asked, "Who are you looking at?"
She pulled her brows together and stuck a finger back over her shoulder at the window. "What? Out there?"
He shook his head slowly. "No. Right now."
She blinked at him. I'm not sure I know anymore. "You."
"Which is who?"
She let her mouth flap for a second, then finally gave up. "I don't understand. Harry Denby, I guess."
He shook his head again, harder this time, his eyes sliding shut for a moment. "You guess..." he echoed, pinning her with his eyes. "Since you came in, I've seen fear, confusion, anger, and regret, but I'm not seeing anything that qualifies as a reaction to the man I recognize as me. You're looking at a stranger with my face and I'd like to know who he is." Getting only a helpless stare in response, he rolled his head back on the pillow, issuing his frustration at the white tiled ceiling. "So far, I've been told I'm a police detective, of which I have no memory. I've been given a name I can't connect with my psyche, and a history I just barely recall any of, incomplete, I'm sure. I wake up in the middle of the night sweating and shaking, and I get told that it's withdrawal from drugs and alcohol, neither of which I remember taking." He flopped his head over to face Diane again. "And now the only person who's aware that I existed before this week is too scared of me to tell me who I am." He opened his mouth again to say more, but whatever it was caught on the sad little click in his throat and his eyes fluttered shut again.
Diane was pulled forward, away from the window to stand by his side. Cautiously, she laid her hand on his arm and found it caught between his in an instant as he opened his eyes on hers.
"Tell me what I did and I'll apologize for it, only... tell me." His voice faded to a whisper. "Please."
She could only shake her head, biting back her tears. In the face of the man before her, she could see what he was meant to have been. What he was before the world twisted on him. What he could be now that it was gone. It never had to be that way, and now it wasn't anymore. She didn't want to remember it. Didn't want him to remember it. Not any of it.
Only one thing. The only thing she wanted him to recall, the only thing she wanted him to take from his last life into this, even if not knowing why meant she couldn't come with it.
She kissed him, feeling him fill and brush cool fingertips over her burning cheek. Even this was different. He was complete and clear, sweet like water. In that moment, Diane's brain manufactured a million lies to tell him, and a million more to tell herself. He didn't deserve to know the truth anymore. Harry Denby did, but not this man.
This man didn't deserve to hurt like that.
She broke away, still close enough to feel his whisper in her mouth.
"Diane..."
"I'm sorry." It was all she could say. She bolted again, unable to deal with anything about him anymore, hearing her name come after her as she slung the door open and trotted down the hall with her head down.
"Diane!" he called after her one last time, knowing she probably couldn't hear him anymore by now. He pressed his fingers to his lips, holding the last traces of her warmth there. She knew his mouth like she belonged there, with a kiss like the first notes of a song he almost knew, spilling all its forgotten words in a jumbled mess where her tongue had touched his. The song of his life, and everything about her told him she never wanted to hear it again.
"What the hell have you done, Harry Denby?" he whispered against his hand. He looked out his window, staring at the sky in silence, waiting for something else to come to him, to tell him what was going on.
Someone knocked at his door.
She came back! "Yes?"
The door clicked open with a cheerful swing. "Good morning, Harry."
He dropped his eyes to his lap, looking much more disappointed than he'd liked to have shown the staff psychologist. "Dr. Sheridan."
She drew her head back and lifted her hands to him. "Let's not get too excited about it now."
Harry lifted a smile to the young woman. "I'm sorry. It's been kind of... weird this morning."
Dr. Sheridan clapped her hands together with a grin. "What a coincidence. 'Kind of weird' is my specialty."
"Not this weird."
"Oh, this weird and even more, I'll betcha. Come on."
"Come on where?"
Dr. Sheridan shook her head and made swooshing motions at him with her arms. "We're taking a walk. Come on. Up and at 'em. Move it or lose it. Time is money..."
He'd started to swing his legs off the side of the bed with a little grunt, stopping to eye her at her last statement. "Time is money?" he echoed. "That hardly seems apropos."
She rolled her eyes and stepped forward to snap the covers off him. "Okay, how about; Stop stalling and get out of bed, Harry. Does that work for you?"
He snatched at his blankets with a snarl. "Hey, hey, hey... how much naked do you wanna see, here?"
Dr. Sheridan was relentlessly cheery. "I've seen worse than you. Come on," she clapped her hands a couple times, swinging her arms in wide half-circles around her waist as she spoke. "You need to start moving more. Healthy bodies, healthy minds."
"Healthy minds," he grumbled along with her, "Yeah, yeah, yeah..." He sighed heavily and sat up, wincing a little as his cracked ribs complained at him. "And speaking of bodies, could you maybe find something to cover my ass with? The curtains are kind of open in the back, here."
"I'm gonna cover your ass with my foot in a second if you don't stand up, Harry."
"Oh, funny lady," Harry grumped, sliding himself forward until he was upright and leaning on the bed for support. "The floor is cold," he complained.
"We'll get you some slippers." She crossed the room and opened a door in the room opposite the hallway.
He continued to whine. "My stuff's all hanging out in the back. People are gonna think I'm advertising."
"We'll smack a sticky that says 'post no bills' on it, then." Dr. Sheridan tossed over her shoulder from the little closet.
"Yeah, I'm sure. The operative word being 'smack'?"
Dr. Sheridan stepped back from the closet and kicked it shut, having produced a white terrycloth robe and a pair of hospital slippers from inside. "The operative word being 'post', as in the one you've obviously got in residence at the area in question. I'm kidding, Harry." She walked over to stand beside him, dropping the slippers on the bed and flapping the robe open. "Come on."
He lifted his arm and his face contorted in pain. "Ow."
"Easy, easy..." she soothed, thinking for a second as he dropped his arm again. "There's only one way this is gonna happen."
"What?"
"Turn around."
"What!"
She looked him dead in the eye and repeated herself, this time as a command. He faced her down for a second, then gave up completely, rolling his hips across the bed until he was facing the window.
"Put your arms back." He obeyed, rolling his eyes and blowing out his breath in little huffs. In a flat second, he was covered, but before he could roll back around to face front, she stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Wait a minute. This'll be easier this way, too." Her head dropped out of his peripheral vision and he turned to look. In a few efficient motions, she'd picked both his feet up in turn and put the slippers on him.
"Great," he grumbled as he turned himself around. "Full duffer mode."
Dr. Sheridan patted his shoulder a little, cocking a smile up at him. "Who do you have to impress right now?"
He gave a little snort. "Apparently, nobody's been very impressed with me."
"What makes you say that?"
"Because it's not normal for a woman to kiss a man and then run screaming from him."
Dr. Sheridan nodded a little. "So that's what that was about."
"What was about?"
"The redhead who almost killed me flying down the stairs just now." She took a little step back, staying within arm's reach. "Come on. Try 'em out."
Harry pushed himself up off the bed and stumbled on the first step. Dr. Sheridan put her hands out and he braced heavily against her arms. "God," he muttered. "Could I get any more useless?"
"Hey," she snapped, drawing his eyes to hers. "None of that. You haven't used your legs for better than two weeks. It's gonna take a few days before you're ready to hit the marathon circuit again, okay?"
"This is ridiculous," he came back, throwing a little pitch into his voice. "In two weeks, one person who knows me has come past, I know she hates me, and she won't tell me why. You guys are taking all this time to make me better and I'm thinking that maybe, just maybe, I was someone who would have been better off dead!"
"Is that really what you want?"
"It's starting to get there."
"Bullshit."
He narrowed his eyes at her. "Excuse me?"
"Bull shit," she repeated with feeling. "That's an empty threat, you know it, and I'm disgusted you would even try something like that on me."
His warning voice rang like electricity. "And just how do you figure that, Doctor?"
She took a step forward, forcing him up to his full height as she spoke into his face. "You probably don't realize this, but you rolled in here in pretty bad shape. If there wasn't something inside of you that wanted to live like crazy, believe me Harry, you'd already be dead. I've seen plenty of people in better health than you go because they didn't have it in them to stay. You do." She watched him, staring him down until he had to look away, then finished her thought in a determined growl. "And don't you ever tell anyone different."
He fixed his eyes on hers. "And what about when they tell me different?"
Dr. Sheridan set her jaw. "Let them. The only opinion that matters here is yours." He looked away again, but now she could see him digesting her words. "Think about it this way," she continued. "For all intents and purposes, you just got here. How many people would sell their souls to buy what you've been given?"
His eyes were still on the far wall. "What's that?"
"You get to start over." She finally drew his full attention, feeling him draw himself up on his own strength and push back against her, carefully testing his power. She held on to his arms and stepped back, leading him forward as she spoke. "Maybe you weren't the greatest guy in the world before, but you're not that guy anymore, Harry. Even if it all comes back tomorrow, you're different now."
"And if it does come back... what if I still don't want it?" His voice held trepidation, but his steps were getting bigger and bigger. Dr. Sheridan dropped one of his arms and turned to walk beside him.
"Life can be pretty interesting, Harry. I would suggest that you give it another shot."
"What is it?" The motherly looking woman in puppy print scrubs was flushed and panting by the time she made it to the nurses' stand in post-trauma. "I got a page..."
"Thank god," the young male orderly nearly collapsed in relief at the sight of her. "He started crying a half hour ago and we can't find any of his attending docs. Uhrig is out of contact for the night, and Sheridan and Clarence are both on a plane to Sioux City for a conference.
"I didn't know you folks had a baby up here."
The orderly shook his head and opened his mouth to reply, but his answer was given for him in the sound of a plaintive, masculine wail. He cocked his head a little. "Sound like a baby to you, Lise'?"
She fanned her fingers over her chest. "I don't have any experience with the grown ones, I just do the little ones. Are you sure you've got the right girl for this?"
"You're in maternity as a soother, right?"
"Right."
"Well, he needs one. Come on." The young man led the way, trailing her and her protestations behind him.
"I really don't think I'm qualified to do this."
The orderly stopped in front of a crying door. "I'm not asking you to do anything you haven't done a million times. You're legendary with getting crying babies to sleep. This is the same thing, only... bigger." He pushed the door open. "Just get him back to sleep."
She peered around the doorway and into the dim room, hearing a man sobbing within. "I still don't..."
"Please," the orderly interrupted her, pleading quietly. "He's gonna wake up the whole ward again."
Lise' shook her head a little, sizing up her newest challenge. "I guess there's a first time for everything." She stepped into the room, starting slightly as she heard the door close behind her. Through the low light, she could see the form of a man curled up as much as his injury would allow, his eyes open and blank. With quiet steps, she crossed the room and came up beside him.
"Hi, there. My name is Lise'."
"I know what I did," he hissed. "I know what she did... why she..." He closed his eyes and took what he couldn't bring himself to say back down his throat. "I remember now."
"Remember what, honey?" She reached out, feeling him flinch as her hand fell on his arm.
"I remember everything. She... she came to me and I made her..." He pressed his face into the mattress with a loathing groan. "I should have let her!" He pounded his fist into the bed, muffling his scream in the blankets. "I should have just let her kill me!"
Lise' pushed the bedside tray aside and drew her hip up onto the bed, planning out how exactly she was going to go about this. "I don't know anything about that," she said softly, "but I think you should try and go to sleep right now." She put her hand down again to stroke his back, feeling him shiver and release in fresh tears.
"Oh, god, I wish I didn't know. I wish she'd have never come back here. So many people..." He rolled up a little, sticking out his hands and ticking off names on his fingers. "Yvonne and Paco, Miguel, and Enrique, and... and..." He pounded his fist into the mattress again, digging his fingers into the bedding. "I didn't even know that dealer's name! Oh, god, I should be burning in Hell right now! Why am I still here?"
"It's not our place to judge," Lise' tried to keep her voice calm and low, but she was beginning to wonder what she'd gotten herself into. "Just try and go back to sleep, okay?"
"I want to go back," he sobbed. "I don't want it this way."
Lise' couldn't hold back her quiet smile. The little ones didn't have the words to say it, but the sentiment was familiar and she understood it clearly enough. She stroked his damp hair back behind his ear and spoke to him in a slow, lulling voice. "It's always a little rough at the start, but I promise it gets better. There'll be a whole new world out there for you when you wake up tomorrow, and for every tomorrow after that one." She couldn't count the number of times she'd made that selfsame promise, and she made it again now without hesitation. She knew it would never let her down.
He had quieted from sobs to sniffles, but he wasn't convinced yet. "But... but what if tomorrow... what if..?"
"Shh, shh, shh, shh," she soothed, feeling him unlock as she rubbed his back again. "Then that's tomorrow. It'll be what it is. It's time for you to sleep right now."
He gave a shuddery little sigh, relaxing back into the sleep he'd been ripped out of by the nightmare of his own memory. "She was so scared... I have to tell her," he mumbled, "I have to tell her I love her."
"Tomorrow, honey," Lise' whispered. "Everything tomorrow."
He nodded a little, returning her whisper.
"Tomorrow."
Continued in Part 6.
