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dime_liora“The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life begins with three things: the color red, shouting, and pain that in a kind universe would be unimaginable.
He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows he’s being hurt and there are human hands attached to the pain.
Words that make little sense hit him everywhere, O2 and traumatic rhabdomyolysis, and somewhere in the background is a voice that pierces the color red and wails my brother my brother that’s my brother.
He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows one word despite all the noise and confusion. Sammy.
----
The next time he wakes up his left leg is on fire, and there’s a nurse hovering over him injecting something into his IV. A hand snaps out and grabs her wrist, and he realizes it’s his at the same time she shrieks and jumps about a foot.
“Wha – hurts.” It’s as close as he can come to the things flying through his head, screaming for his attention beyond the aches and pains, and the tiny inferno spreading from his foot to above his knee.
Her eyes soften, and she makes the needle disappear before gently disengaging his grip.
“I just gave you a shot of morphine honey, but it’s going to take a minute. When it hits you just drift off, alright? We’ll talk later after you’ve met your doctor again.”
He shakes his head, the world is nothing but pain and confusion, and that hurts almost as bad as his leg. The left half of his vision is dripping in red, screaming, blood red, and he fumbles for her again before giving it up as a bad job.
“Please – don’t hurt me no more.” It’s slurred, childlike, and the nurse covers her mouth for a second before regaining her composure.
“I’m going to try not to. Sleep now. Go to sleep.”
And he does.
----
There’s a whiteboard on the left side of the room, and when the world isn’t red over there he can focus on it and know what it says. The board reminds him where he is, what the date is, who his doctor and his current nurse are. Despite that he remembers the nurses by what they call him.
The first conversation he is an active participant in ends with him screaming fuck at the nurse that calls him Mr. Hunt. He can’t remember why he wanted to curse at her, what she did, but it must have been something. Then again, he’s been getting pretty angry on a regular basis. It could be the pain, or the confusion, or simply the fact that when he could really see the world and comprehend it he found out that the agony centered under his left knee has no basis.
There’s no leg there anymore.
The nurse that calls him honey and always looks like she’s about to cry tries to keep an upbeat attitude. It’s not a hundred percent successful. She insists that he go over basic facts every day. His name is Dean Hunt. It is 2007, and the president of the United States is George W. Bush. He’s in a hospital in Atlanta, and according to his driver’s license he’s from the area. He was in a car accident, and apparently the only name he could remember, the elusive Sammy, was some kind of nickname for the sister that died in it.
It feels right and wrong at the same time. Everything does.
A third nurse appears as Dean’s memory gets both better and worse. She calls him Dean, no affectionate moniker and no formality, and her approach is equally tempered and straightforward. She tells Dean his anger is understandable even as she refuses to be abused, and Dean likes her for it immensely despite his mouth helplessly spewing hate.
It’s a side effect of the head injury they say. The damage that leaves him forgetting so much, seeing red, and suffering from headaches that make him weak and nauseous.
He has no visitors, apparently the dead sister was all that was left, and the good nurse tells him that there was someone when he arrived that’s wanted for questioning by the police. They think he was the other driver, the one at fault, and Dean would hold a grudge except he doesn’t remember the sibling the man might have killed or the accident that has made him a broken parody.
How can he blame someone for stealing something he can’t miss?
When they deem him well enough for physical therapy there’s a guy in a polo shirt whose name is either Mike or Mark, and he makes Dean do things that seem impossible and bring the morphine usage back to peak. Dean hates him most, until the day he takes his first step on the prosthetic leg they’ve fitted him with. Then he hates Mike/Mark a little less than the formal nurse.
A lawyer shows up at the hospital and tells Dean that he’s inherited money, lots of it, and his sister’s house. Dean doesn’t know if he wants either, and he says that but the lawyer tells him he’ll need it for hospital bills and everything else. The lawyer also tells him about his sister’s funeral.
For some reason as they discuss coffins and unattended ceremonies Dean cries. Maybe it’s the thought of the corpse being even more alone than he is or maybe it’s some buried memory, but the lawyer hands him a handkerchief and he accepts it with one shaking hand and an understanding that this is really happening.
The closest Dean gets to living in his sister’s house is riding past it in Mike/Mark’s car. He studies the exterior, the grand yard and the huge front portico, and then quietly asks his physical therapist if he’ll drive to a hotel. He stays there for a month before the good nurse, Rachel or maybe Rebecca, tells him he needs to find a home.
She says she knows a place that’s isolated, that has a very good physical therapist nearby that makes house calls, and that a former patient moved to. Dean uses the lawyer to sell his sister’s house and buy himself two acres of wooded property in Maine. There’s a neighbor on one side whose house is kind of close, but otherwise he’ll have a ton of space to simply figure out how to live broken and alone in an oversized world.
He cries the day Rachel helps him pack what little he has to board the plane. Rebecca does too.
---
The end of summer passes in a haze. Dean thinks maybe he remembers more with time. For example, he knows that the cool nights and reasonable days are not what he’s used to. He remembers sweating, and the smell of motor oil. Sometimes he fingers the tools that he found in the basement of his new home and imagines that he used to do something hands on. None of the information in his wallet suggested anything else, and he never went into his sister’s home long enough to find out. He also never touched her things, or opened the box the lawyer sent him.
He did get a picture of her, floppy brown hair and soft green eyes, and it sits on his built-in bookshelves along with a random collection of paperback science fiction novels he’s picked up on his random trips into town.
The realtor explained to him that this is some kind of commune, that the people here are either very friendly or very reclusive, and that his neighbors are in the first category. He believes it, but he spends the first two weeks not answering the door and they apparently get the message.
What he knows about them can be ticked off on one hand: two women, loud music, and some sort of metallic squealing. From a distance he knows that one is tall and black, the other short and blonde, but that’s as close as he’s willing to get.
The house sits in a clearing that butts up to their property line and their own house, and then the woods begin again. They share a long winding driveway back to the main road, and then Dean’s splits off and wraps around his two-story cement block home. It’s not exactly pretty, no grand Plantation home like his sister’s place, but he loves it for being strong and solid. The design makes what heat the summer has stay out, and the whole place is filled with windows that let in sunlight and wake him in the morning.
Dean doesn’t buy curtains.
The physical therapist is named Lucas this time, and he’s harder than Mike, definitely Mike, but Dean likes him. Sometimes, after a long series of exercises and listing steps, Dean and Lucas will share a beer on the patio as Lucas smokes and discusses the area or Dean’s progress. They talk music, but Dean is just learning his own preferences so he has little to argue about.
He seems to enjoy classic rock, has a strange niggling belief that he knows some of the songs when they come on, and Lucas supports that by burning him CDs of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Dean will open the windows sometimes and blast the music as he sits in the middle of his living room and wonders if he should get a TV or a couch.
Those are the good days. On the bad days Dean ends up on some surface, sometimes the bed and sometimes the floor, unable to take himself from one place to another. His headaches come back frequently, his leg aches too much, or he’s overwhelmed with rage and despair. Those are the days when his Swiss cheese memory betrays him. Rebecca is Rachel and Mike is Mark, he’s back in Atlanta suffering at the hands of nameless tormentors, and his vision is red and bloody.
Lucas finds him like that one day, sprawled out on the floor with his hands buried in the old green carpet and his pants soiled. The physical therapist helps him up, washes him, and then brings him painkillers. He hesitantly mentions an in-home nurse, just someone to watch Dean until he’s stronger, and Dean not so hesitantly tells him where to go.
Ultimately Dean knows Lucas is right. If nothing else he needs an emergency contact for when things get really bad. They told him the headaches could last for a year or longer, and the treacherous quality of his leg makes the concrete under the thin carpets downstairs a hazard he can’t afford. That doesn’t change how badly he wants to be independent.
Maybe he wasn’t so stubborn before the accident, who knows really, but whatever he used to be like now he can’t stand the thought of leaning on some stranger. Asking Lucas for help while he was there was hard enough.
One night in late September Dean’s sitting on the patio with Lucas sipping water and half-spaced on pain killers while the day dwindles past. It had been a hard session, and he aches everywhere through the haze of opiates. For a moment, he thinks Lucas’ voice is a little deeper, somewhat familiar, and he doesn’t hear what the physical therapist says, just the familiar tone.
“I said do you even have a snow shovel?”
He drags himself to the present and focuses in on Lucas’ salt and pepper beard.
“I have a shovel. I haven’t really looked in detail.” He frowns at his empty water. When had that happened?
Lucas shakes his head mournfully. “Dude, that’s not good. Look, let me go winter shopping for you and you can pay me back. I know what kind of supplies you need.”
“Yeah, whatever. There’s still a couple months before winter is gonna hit Lucas.”
The physical therapist laughs until his eyes are watering. “Maybe where you come from, but up here winter is just around the corner. Haven’t you noticed how cold it’s getting already?”
Dean had noticed the temperature dropping, the way the cold makes his knee ache right above his stump, but he didn’t think much of it at the time. Autumn had just really started, and he’s been enjoying the leaves changing color.
“I get it man. Just get the stuff and I’ll pay you back.”
“In the meantime, if you won’t consider getting help maybe you will think about getting a hobby. Something to engage your mind and keep you from being so…reflective.”
He looks up at that, sees the way Lucas is focused on the neighbor’s house, and tries to find an appropriate response.
“What’s wrong with being reflective?”
Lucas sighs and rubs his thumb along the neck of his beer bottle. “Your doctors told you not to push the memory thing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well constantly thinking about how your memory doesn’t work is pushing the memory thing. You need to get out. You need friends. You need a hobby.”
“Shit Leon, I guess maybe I’ll take up knitting. You can come over; we can sit in a circle and chat about boys and our day.”
“Lucas.” Dean feels his cheeks go bright red, but Lucas is only smiling gently into the distance. “And my grandmother taught me to knit when I was six. I make an incredible set of mittens.”
He laughs off the shame of his slip, and considers making some concession in the interest of showing Lucas his gratitude.
----
Dean avoids going to town as much as he can. While there isn’t much that he can’t find there, the setting is off-putting. The whole thing is designed as a hippie wonderland. There are permanent stalls set up for local vendors, an indoor organic food market, and almost fifty shops that brand themselves unique, vintage, handmade, and local. His bi-weekly shopping trips are done at speed, and with his breath held to avoid the stink of patchouli.
He’s limping towards his truck, listing slightly after yesterday’s session, when something catches his eye. Later Dean will think maybe the sun hit the gleaming metal just right, or maybe his prosthetic lost traction for half a second and he stumbled and turned. Whatever it was, accident, fate, Dean saw the metal and plastic and knew.
It’s a beast, weighs thirty pounds and takes up a great deal of space on his kitchen table, but Dean’s fingers slide over the ancient plastic keys reverently. He feels the need to use it, to start the tapping sound he’s heard in countless movies as some fedora wearing reporter breaks a big story and gets the girl.
Dean suddenly remembers he hasn’t watched a movie, has barely even seen full commercials since he woke up. The closest thing he has to an opinion on the media is that the Snuggles Bear is a demon. Still, he’s flooded with the sense that he has seen movies and they were black and white and had reporters with fedoras and giant press passes. It’s a good feeling, it comes with comfort and security, and his left hand moves out to the air beside him reaching for something he can’t remember or begin to name.
Which is when he comes crashing back to the reality that he is, for all intents and purposes, only a few months old. He draws the cover over the typewriter and limps to the stove to heat up soup and a grilled cheese.
----
Lucas made it a point to show Dean where the salt bags and snow shovel were now stored, and Dean wakes up on the tenth day of October to see snow piled up outside of his window and gleaming in the sunlight.
He waits an hour to see if the snow will melt a little under the sun, but the light is too weak and the air too cold. Since today is his shopping day Dean picks up the shovel and heads to the back door so he can dig his truck out of the foot of snow. From here he can see that the neighbors’ drive is plowed, and that the driveway beyond has been taken care of too.
Snow-shoveling, Dean quickly learns, is a bullshit job. It’s hard on the back, the legs, and Dean doesn’t have the most stable of stances. It doesn’t help that he’s way too tall for the little shovel, and he spends most of his work bent over and angled to spare his leg some of the weight as he tries to clear a space. After an hour he’s fallen three times, and managed to move just enough snow to hate himself and the weather more than he did when he woke up.
His hands are numb, his pants cuffs are soaked, and his right leg is screaming in protest. Dean limps through the side door and gives up. He can make it another day or two, just until he can find someone to plow the driveway for him or for the snow to melt, and he unhooks his leg and slips into a warm bath.
There’s pain, cramping and screaming in his foot and hands as they come back to life, and Dean rubs them helplessly and wonders why he ever listened to Rebecca when she told him to come north. He’s slightly proud that he got her name right though.
The warmth of the bath and the cessation of pain combine to lull him into a trance state, and he’s halfway asleep when he hears the deep scraping noise. Dean stumbles out of the bath, dries off as quickly as he can and reattaches his prosthesis before limping to the back door. What he sees makes him stop dead in the cold air and stare.
Blonde neighbor is using a shovel to get what black neighbor misses with the plow attached to the front of her truck. Up close he can see that blonde neighbor is cute, little-girl pretty and wrapped in what looks like hand-knitted pink and purple gear, and her smile when she spots Dean is bright and wide.
The other woman is elegantly beautiful, a softer Grace Jones, who doesn’t smile at him but does nod his way before lowering the plow blade and driving forward.
Dean bursts into movement, both arms waving and shouting before his brain really engages. Both women freeze in place, the truck rumbling filling the sudden tense silence and Dean trying to remember what it was he was going to say. The blonde kicks in first.
“Hey neighbor! Zoe and I saw that you were having some trouble with-“
He steps forward and cuts her off with what must be a fairly imposing glare. The door to the truck creaks open and the second woman, Zoe apparently, steps out. She’s maybe an inch or two taller than him, and her jaw is tight with a tension the blonde doesn’t seem to be feeling.
“Look ladies, it’s nice of you to roll over here and help the cripple, but useless as I am I can hire a snowplow person.”
Zoe’s left hand balls into a fist and the little blonde steps nimbly in front of her with a smile still on her face, but less feeling behind it.
“Oh hey, yeah, no problem. Sorry we just get a little overeager to be neighborly. But since we’re almost finished maybe we could-“
“Hell no. Amy get in the truck. This prick doesn’t want help we don’t give it to him.”
Amy’s voice is pure sugar and sunshine, but Zoe’s is whiskey and the South. It makes Dean think of home in the obscure way he has. Whether that home is the place he can’t remember or the hospital in Atlanta he can’t be sure.
The women share a look, and then Zoe throws her hands up in disgust and storms back to the truck before taking off. Amy smiles fondly at the empty space before turning back to Dean.
“She gets a little touchy about the c-word. No big deal. Look, Mr. Hunt, we just wanted to be helpful alright? I’m sorry you took it wrong but-“
Cutting her off seems to be the new basis of their relationship.
“Your roommate’s too politically correct if the word cripple pisses her off. As for helping I-“
Now it’s Amy’s turn to cut in. A small, gloved hand rises into the air and her pink lips form a lopsided smile that is totally forced and a little sad.
“She gets offended because her right arm is a hand and ten inches short. Also, she’s my partner, for the last seven years. You have a nice day Mr. Hunt, and if you change your mind we’re in the phone book listed under Zigorski. I promise we’re the only ones.”
Amy flits off, feet finding easy traction on the mostly finished driveway, and Dean watches her reach the split in the driveways and turn left before he realizes that she knew his last name.
----
Lucas is there a few days later sharing Dean’s stew and moaning over every spoonful.
“So you chose cooking as a hobby? Because this is excellent Dean. I could eat this for days.”
Dean breaks off a hunk of the bread he got at the bakery and butters it before he finds how he wants to word the next question.
“Did you tell the lesbians next door about me?”
For a moment Dean is honestly worried his physical therapist will choke to death on his stew. When he finally gets it under control though Lucas stares at him through watery eyes.
“Dean, please tell me you used that term for a reason other than homophobia.”
His defenses hit before his pride can argue. “No I can’t remember their names.”
All traces of animosity leave Lucas and he looks away to give Dean a moment to regroup.
“Amy and Zoe. Amy has a terrible joke about it that you’ll eventually hear. In the meantime though, just work on one name or the other. Or say the women next door. That would work too.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.” He pops a large chunk of stew beef into his mouth and chews while Lucas splutters and tries to figure out how to respond.
“Ye- maybe. Maybe I told them one or two things. Like you were new to the area, and in need of some friends. I might have done that.”
“And about my leg, or my…episodes?” Dean’s whole body is whipcord tight, because he honestly likes Lucas when he isn’t busy hating him for the amount of pain he deals out. If Lucas has betrayed his trust though...
“The leg. Not how, just that I was helping you with it. I’m Zoe’s physical therapist too, or I was before she stopped needing me. She’s the one your old nurse Rebecca treated. Zoe was in the same hospital as you once when her arm was amputated.”
He’s not happy about it, but Dean figures he can live with that.
“Well I don’t need to form a support group for cripples or anything so-“
“Dean Hunt, I have put up with your outbursts about my cologne, my potential sadism, and my love of Kenny G, but I will not sit here and listen to you denigrate yourself and my friend to nothing but your medical conditions. You’re more than a missing leg, idiot, and I don’t want you in a support group I want you to have friends. I’d like to be your friend honestly, but after the many times I’ve seen you vulnerable I doubt you’d allow that.”
Dean’s flabbergasted, utterly unable to come up with anything in response, and then finally he hears his voice sounding distant and stupid.
“I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know if I’ve ever had any.”
“Well you’re learning to cook, and you’re learning to cope, so maybe you can learn to buddy up with people.” Lucas’s smile is warm and honest. “Especially if you feed them like this all the time.”
They go back to their stew, conversation turning light and easy, and Dean considers the many options he has for apologizing to the neighbors.
----
It takes a week for Dean to figure out how to make amends. The early snow has melted at that point, but temperatures are still incredibly low. Dean’s learned to live with the constant ache that the weather inspires, and he goes to town and buys the most non-homeopathic, over-the-counter painkiller he can in the interest of not being drugged out all the time.
The day he stands in the kitchen for two hours baking cupcakes from scratch the sky has turned cloudy and the wind is rattling the dry leaves off of their branches and driving them into the windows. He honestly can’t tell if it’s the sound or the fact that he has no idea if they’ll accept his peace offering, but Dean’s on high alert the whole time.
He’s in the middle of icing a cupcake when a high-pitched noise cuts through his internal repetition of the website’s icing tips. Dean drops the knife and limps quickly to the door. Something about the sound, a cry of desperation and sorrow, makes his blood run cold and his hands shake.
His back door opens on a yard full of nothing, no one is there, and Dean isn’t sure what he was expecting. Except then he looks down to see a puppy, about the size of his boot, sitting on the doorstep and looking up at him hopefully as it whines pathetically.
Something clenches in Dean’s chest at those big brown eyes, and he bends down without thinking and scoops the puppy up.
The little ball of fur trembles in his grip, turns those pleading eyes up again, and thumps its tail weakly against his wrist as it licks tentatively at his hand. Dean’s heart just about breaks when the puppy finds a bit of icing and goes at licking his fingers with gusto.
There’s no telling where it came from, or what it might be carrying with it, but the puppy is staying here. Dean knows that already. He rubs idly at the thing’s bony ribs under thick fur before heading into the kitchen.
“I don’t have any dog food puppy. I don’t really have anything. Plus, I can barely take care of myself. You’re gonna have to help me out here. I don’t even know if I like dogs.”
The puppy tilts its head and gives him a quizzical look. Dean’s chest clenches again, and he speaks without thinking.
“My brother could give you this puppy-dog look and you’d just buy right into it.”
He wakes up an hour later according to the clock on the microwave, with the puppy licking his face and whining piteously, and a headache much like those first ones.
Dean doesn’t remember what he said.
---
He gives it another shot the next day. He can’t remember the exact name the woman gave him, but he flips through the fairly thin phone book until he finds an address near his. It starts with a z, and that feels right.
The phone rings twice, and then the bright voice he recognizes as Ann answers. “Hello neighbor!”
A full three seconds pass before Dean’s internal voice says, caller id, and he relaxes.
“Hi, hey, uh-“
“You want to come over here or have me come over there? Zoe’s at work, but maybe that’s good. I can get to know you a bit, and then pretend I was vetting you and you passed.”
They settle on her coming over, Dean doesn’t thank her for not making a big deal of giving his leg a break, and then he puts a bowl of milk soaked chow down for Bonham and places the cupcakes on the table as if they were always sitting there.
Dean answers the door on the first knock, wiping his hands on his jeans, and then gestures for her to follow him into the kitchen. Ally slips her knit hat off exposing golden curls before she drops into a chair and plucks up a cupcake.
“So, your apology is baked goods? Feel free to be rude any time.” Her smile is bright, and Dean feels his own lips quirk in answer.
“Don’t get used to it. I might not regret next time.”
Her lips part in a shocked “o” and then one hand settles on her chest. “If anything you’ll feel worse once you get to know me. Zoe says I’m just like a kid and that makes – oh my god puppy dog!”
Her hands, not much bigger than the puppy itself, lift the squirming bundle and she buries her face in his fur as she murmurs and laughs.
“Oh yes, yes, most adorable, yes, puppy kisses and puppy breath, oh my god! I’m going to steal you and take you home and name you Sunny for the sunshine. Yes I will sweet girl!”
“Him. His name is Bonham. You’re not stealing him.”
Bright blue eyes peer over fluffy brown fur wickedly. “Her, Dean. That’s her vulva. Boy puppies have a penis closer to the center, girl puppies have vulva that go inside. Also, you cannot name a puppy after an alcoholic drummer. We’ll compromise, we’ll name her Bonnie. Bonnie Tyler.”
“I am not – why would I need to agree with you on what to name my dog?” He’s amused despite himself, and she seems to pick up on the difference in tone. Her grin is so big it has dimples.
“Because I’m going to help you raise her, and take her for walkies, and teach her a ton of tricks. Oh! And buy little ribbons for her ears. Pink ribbons. You’ll like those won’t you.”
Dean bites into a cupcake and slumps back into his chair. “Is this how you make friends? Steal their dog’s love and take over their lives?”
The blue studies him again and practically sparkles. “Yes.”
---
Amy, not Ann or Ally, is apparently not joking. She becomes a fixture in Dean’s house, and the first thing she does is proclaim they’re going furniture shopping. Dean points out that he has a kitchen table, a computer desk, and a bed, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for her.
When Dean’s response is that he doesn’t want to spend a couple grand on handmade hippy furniture Amy gives him a loud sigh and pats his shoulder softly.
“That’s why we don’t go into the tourist town.”
It turns out the whole time Dean was struggling with the smell of patchouli and overpriced trinkets there was another town about five miles away that the locals used, as opposed to the tourist trap he’s been visiting. There’s a regular supermarket that carries preservative laden food and real sugar, a pharmacy with pharmaceuticals, and an Ashley store they spend two hours in.
Amy directs the delivery men where to place the furniture, pink mouth pursed as she judges distances and placement. Dean watches helplessly with Bonnie in his arms as his house becomes a home. After the men leave Amy pushes him into the big armchair he picked and then makes the worst casserole he’s ever tasted.
“I’m sorry Dean. Zoe’s the cook. I promise from now on Zoe will cook.”
Dean turns a forkful over and then forces a smile. “It’s – uh it’s fine.”
She shakes her head sadly and puts another forkful away. “Anyway, what’s with the ancient typewriter?”
He looks over to the machine, still taking up space on his kitchen table, and then back to her curious gaze.
“Lucas thought I needed a hobby. To get me out of my head. I thought I’d try writing.”
Amy’s smile is back despite her mouthful of cheese glop. “Oh? How’s it going? Are you the next Hemingway?”
He thinks of the pages of nonsense, stories about ghosts and monsters, all of them full of blood and suffering, and a protagonist that is searching for someone he can’t seem to find or live without.
“No. It’s crap. But it means I’m not just sitting around thinking of how I can’t remember anything.”
One blonde eyebrow lifts delicately as Amy pushes her plate away.
“Head injury on top of the leg?”
They’ve never discussed it, and Dean wonders how many times he’s called her the wrong name and she hasn’t said anything out of kindness.
“Doesn’t matter. I deal. When am I gonna get my do-over on your partner?”
Amy bites her lip for a second before putting her fork down. “Zoe is…grumpy sometimes. She holds grudges. It’s nothing personal and she’ll totally get over it, but until that happens you just got to let her get there on her own. She doesn’t like to be pushed.”
“And yet she’s with you?”
He manages to duck the flying casserole just in time.
---
If asked the top five ways he wanted to meet Zoe this would not have been in the extended one hundred list.
Dean has a bad day, which begins with Bonnie destroying his shoe and then leads to some sort of memory. If it’s any indication of what Dean’s life was like before maybe he doesn’t want his memories back.
He’s in a backyard, very young, and his arms ache horribly as he tries to hold up a gun and hit a target. A man, shadowy but there, leans over his shoulder and speaks in a gruff voice.
“You can do this Dean. You gotta do this to protect Sammy. Stay stable, hold the gun the way I showed you, and squeeze the trigger don’t pull it.”
The gun kicks, and Dean takes a face full of hot metal before landing on his ass. He’s crying, shaking, and the shadowy man sounds sorry and disgusted at the same time.
“Okay kiddo. We’ll start again tomorrow with a smaller caliber. Let’s get some ice on your face now.”
The scene shifts, a run-down house and a baby, and Dean is waving a spoon around and making airplane noises through his cotton-stuffed nose.
“C’mon Sammy, open up for the airplane so you can grow big and strong.”
“Come on Dean, eyes open. Eyes open.”
Amy is in his face, eyes wide and skin pale, and two arms are hooked under his armpits as he’s being drug across the carpet.
For a moment Dean almost lashes out against the force pulling him, and then that urge subsides and all that is left is the need to throw up, immediately and as hard as possible, in an attempt to expel the little marching band living in his skull.
The whiskey and honey voice of Amy’s partner comes over his shoulder. “Get a cold rag and his meds baby girl, and a bucket.”
Amy disappears, and Dean is settled into the comfy armchair before Zoe crouches down in front of him.
“You know where you are Dean?”
“Home. Hurts.” He grabs at the hand closest to him and touches fake flesh before Zoe replaces it with a real one.
“Yep. Good guess. You get these spells often?”
“Enough.”
Amy reappears and drops down at his side with the cold rag, but Dean pushes it away in favor of the bucket, loses breakfast and some extra, and then lets Amy settle him back and drape the damp coolness over his eyes.
“Okay Dean, okay we got you. It’s alright now.” Her voice is soothing, soft, and Dean is lost for a moment.
“Rebecca, it’s bad.”
“Yeah, it’s bad. I can see that.” Hands brush through his hair and settle on his temples before fingertips begin a gentle rotation. “But it’s going to get better.”
Pills press to his lips, and Dean gratefully swallows them and wishes they would use the IV. It’s faster. Slowly, surely, the world goes dark and the pain is as distant a memory as the baby he once loved and fed.
----
Dean wakes to a dark living room, the sound of a door closing, and the smell of something delicious. His leg buckles on his first try to get out of the chair, but eventually he manages to limp to the kitchen where Zoe is making stir fry. Her velvety brown eyes take him in for a moment before she points to the table and goes back to flipping rice in a pan.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He sounds wrecked, and Dean wonders if he screamed at them the way he used to in Atlanta.
Zoe’s mouth twists once in an expression Dean knows very well, and she flicks off the oven and dumps the rice into one of the serving bowls Amy made him buy.
“You should be. I could tell how much you were enjoying it. Hey, while you’re apologizing for things you shouldn’t I hear the Kennedy assassination is still up for grabs.”
“You’re kinda bitchy huh?”
Zoe tosses the chopped vegetables into the skillet before looking Dean’s way.
“And you’re kind of a prick, but we’re gonna get along just fine ‘cause my girl insists we will. She’s unfortunately always right ‘bout that kinda thing.”
“Or she makes herself right?” Zoe’s eyes fly up to catch his and she starts laughing with a surprised look on her face. Dean joins her.
When Amy comes through the door to find them like that her smile is overwhelming.
----
“So, it’s time to share war stories.”
Their nightly ritual now is to dine together, Dean and Zoe taking turns at cooking while Amy plays with Bonnie or attempts to help. She’s not terrible at chopping things.
Dean finishes massaging the rub into the chicken and slides the pan into the oven.
“Is it? I missed the memo.” He reaches down and adjusts the leg of his pants, a habit he’s picked up and hates. “Maybe we should focus on mashed potatoes.”
Amy looks up from where she’s peeling potatoes. “We could do that.”
“I was a firefighter in Atlanta. Went into an apartment building where they had been paying off their inspector. Beam collapsed and pinned me down for about five minutes until one of my brothers came in and dragged me out, but the damage was done.” Zoe’s face is set, challenging and sure, and Dean bristles at the idea that he’ll back out if she can talk so easily about her own damage.
“Car accident. Bounced my head on the pavement and got pinned under the car. Sister died.”
Zoe is watching him thoughtfully, and Dean almost says something further, something cutting, but he hears a sniff behind him. When he turns he sees that Amy is crying, big fat tears, and the knife is forgotten on the cutting board as she knuckles at her eyes.
She steps forward, throws her arms around Dean, and he’s frozen in place as the little body presses against him.
“Dean, oh Dean, I’m so sorry. Is that the picture in your living room? You must miss her so much.”
He doesn’t say he doesn’t remember her. He thinks instead of the baby in his memory, of sliding the spoon into her tiny mouth and then wiping the food off her chin. Why was he in charge of feeding her at such a young age? Were they just that close? Was he an overprotective big brother, did he love her to distraction? He thinks he did.
For the first time since Dean woke up in the hospital he lets himself be comforted.
---
They’re crossing the street, and Dean sees what’s coming long before Amy does. She’s too busy tilting her head back to catch snowflakes on her tongue as Bonnie pulls on her leash.
He grabs her at the last second, hooking his fingers into her shirt and pulling her back to avoid the big classic car that almost runs her over. The driver is hard to see with how the sun is shining off the windshield, but Dean gets the impression of a shocked stare. It probably scared him as bad as it has scared Dean, but his temper gets the better of him and he slaps the hood of the car with a pang of regret.
“Watch it asshole!”
Amy pulls on him, gives an apologetic wave at the driver, and then leads Dean across the street to the supermarket.
“You saved my life.” Her expression is just as sweet and open as always, but something about the words gives Dean a rush along with a cold chill. “You’re my hero.”
There’s something familiar about this, something that strikes at Dean’s core, and he takes a breath before pulling her into a hug.
The car lingers with him. He honestly believes he must have been some kind of mechanic, and maybe that’s why he appreciates it so much. Clean lines, beautiful black paint job, chrome and steel containing all that horsepower. He thinks of his truck, fairly modern and clean, but man, he’d love to drive something like that.
“What kind of car was that? I’ve never seen one like it before.” Amy’s already ducking through the door, laughing when Bonnie barks at the bell ringing. How she talked the owner into letting her bring the dog in Dean still doesn’t know.
“A ’67 Chevy Impala.” It rolls off his tongue like a prayer. “One of the best cars ever made.”
Blue eyes cut to him and then light up. “Oh my god you’re a car fanatic. And here I thought the only machinery you got excited about was that old Underwood.”
“They’re both excellent machines.” He watches her drop noodles into the cart, and reaches in to pull out the angel hair and replace it with linguine. “Show some respect.”
Amy rolls her eyes and adds angel hair on top of the linguine. “Blah, blah, men love machines. Stereotype.”
“I’ve been in your house and accidentally found your goodie drawer. You ladies love machines too.”
She has the grace to blush even as she sticks her tongue out and pulls Bonnie away from the meat case.
----
It is officially Christmas time. Dean gets picked to make the roast, and he spends ten hours hovering near the kitchen to check its progress. There’s two feet of snow outside, and Amy is supposed to be coming to pick him up at some point. Bonnie dances side to side in front of the stove smelling the air and barking excitedly.
Dean finally gets sick of waiting and packs the roast up before attaching Bonnie’s leash. They had to go to special training classes, because Bonnie can pull him off balance without really trying. She hangs close, obedient but desperate, and Dean shakes his head fondly.
“You’re gonna get meat mutt, so give it a rest.” Bonnie’s big eyes admonish him, and when he comes out of the house into the cold air there’s a moment of breathlessness before he adjusts to the temperature change. He begins limping down the driveway, unable to handle the treacherous terrain between the houses, only to see Amy parked at the end of his driveway and standing outside of her truck as she chats with someone wrapped in a giant parka.
Her head turns towards Dean, and she smiles and gives a big wave. Parka guy half turns, sees Dean, and then runs for it into the snow.
Chapter 2
Masterpost
-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Life begins with three things: the color red, shouting, and pain that in a kind universe would be unimaginable.
He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows he’s being hurt and there are human hands attached to the pain.
Words that make little sense hit him everywhere, O2 and traumatic rhabdomyolysis, and somewhere in the background is a voice that pierces the color red and wails my brother my brother that’s my brother.
He doesn’t know his name, and he doesn’t understand where he is or why they’re hurting him, but he knows one word despite all the noise and confusion. Sammy.
----
The next time he wakes up his left leg is on fire, and there’s a nurse hovering over him injecting something into his IV. A hand snaps out and grabs her wrist, and he realizes it’s his at the same time she shrieks and jumps about a foot.
“Wha – hurts.” It’s as close as he can come to the things flying through his head, screaming for his attention beyond the aches and pains, and the tiny inferno spreading from his foot to above his knee.
Her eyes soften, and she makes the needle disappear before gently disengaging his grip.
“I just gave you a shot of morphine honey, but it’s going to take a minute. When it hits you just drift off, alright? We’ll talk later after you’ve met your doctor again.”
He shakes his head, the world is nothing but pain and confusion, and that hurts almost as bad as his leg. The left half of his vision is dripping in red, screaming, blood red, and he fumbles for her again before giving it up as a bad job.
“Please – don’t hurt me no more.” It’s slurred, childlike, and the nurse covers her mouth for a second before regaining her composure.
“I’m going to try not to. Sleep now. Go to sleep.”
And he does.
----
There’s a whiteboard on the left side of the room, and when the world isn’t red over there he can focus on it and know what it says. The board reminds him where he is, what the date is, who his doctor and his current nurse are. Despite that he remembers the nurses by what they call him.
The first conversation he is an active participant in ends with him screaming fuck at the nurse that calls him Mr. Hunt. He can’t remember why he wanted to curse at her, what she did, but it must have been something. Then again, he’s been getting pretty angry on a regular basis. It could be the pain, or the confusion, or simply the fact that when he could really see the world and comprehend it he found out that the agony centered under his left knee has no basis.
There’s no leg there anymore.
The nurse that calls him honey and always looks like she’s about to cry tries to keep an upbeat attitude. It’s not a hundred percent successful. She insists that he go over basic facts every day. His name is Dean Hunt. It is 2007, and the president of the United States is George W. Bush. He’s in a hospital in Atlanta, and according to his driver’s license he’s from the area. He was in a car accident, and apparently the only name he could remember, the elusive Sammy, was some kind of nickname for the sister that died in it.
It feels right and wrong at the same time. Everything does.
A third nurse appears as Dean’s memory gets both better and worse. She calls him Dean, no affectionate moniker and no formality, and her approach is equally tempered and straightforward. She tells Dean his anger is understandable even as she refuses to be abused, and Dean likes her for it immensely despite his mouth helplessly spewing hate.
It’s a side effect of the head injury they say. The damage that leaves him forgetting so much, seeing red, and suffering from headaches that make him weak and nauseous.
He has no visitors, apparently the dead sister was all that was left, and the good nurse tells him that there was someone when he arrived that’s wanted for questioning by the police. They think he was the other driver, the one at fault, and Dean would hold a grudge except he doesn’t remember the sibling the man might have killed or the accident that has made him a broken parody.
How can he blame someone for stealing something he can’t miss?
When they deem him well enough for physical therapy there’s a guy in a polo shirt whose name is either Mike or Mark, and he makes Dean do things that seem impossible and bring the morphine usage back to peak. Dean hates him most, until the day he takes his first step on the prosthetic leg they’ve fitted him with. Then he hates Mike/Mark a little less than the formal nurse.
A lawyer shows up at the hospital and tells Dean that he’s inherited money, lots of it, and his sister’s house. Dean doesn’t know if he wants either, and he says that but the lawyer tells him he’ll need it for hospital bills and everything else. The lawyer also tells him about his sister’s funeral.
For some reason as they discuss coffins and unattended ceremonies Dean cries. Maybe it’s the thought of the corpse being even more alone than he is or maybe it’s some buried memory, but the lawyer hands him a handkerchief and he accepts it with one shaking hand and an understanding that this is really happening.
The closest Dean gets to living in his sister’s house is riding past it in Mike/Mark’s car. He studies the exterior, the grand yard and the huge front portico, and then quietly asks his physical therapist if he’ll drive to a hotel. He stays there for a month before the good nurse, Rachel or maybe Rebecca, tells him he needs to find a home.
She says she knows a place that’s isolated, that has a very good physical therapist nearby that makes house calls, and that a former patient moved to. Dean uses the lawyer to sell his sister’s house and buy himself two acres of wooded property in Maine. There’s a neighbor on one side whose house is kind of close, but otherwise he’ll have a ton of space to simply figure out how to live broken and alone in an oversized world.
He cries the day Rachel helps him pack what little he has to board the plane. Rebecca does too.
---
The end of summer passes in a haze. Dean thinks maybe he remembers more with time. For example, he knows that the cool nights and reasonable days are not what he’s used to. He remembers sweating, and the smell of motor oil. Sometimes he fingers the tools that he found in the basement of his new home and imagines that he used to do something hands on. None of the information in his wallet suggested anything else, and he never went into his sister’s home long enough to find out. He also never touched her things, or opened the box the lawyer sent him.
He did get a picture of her, floppy brown hair and soft green eyes, and it sits on his built-in bookshelves along with a random collection of paperback science fiction novels he’s picked up on his random trips into town.
The realtor explained to him that this is some kind of commune, that the people here are either very friendly or very reclusive, and that his neighbors are in the first category. He believes it, but he spends the first two weeks not answering the door and they apparently get the message.
What he knows about them can be ticked off on one hand: two women, loud music, and some sort of metallic squealing. From a distance he knows that one is tall and black, the other short and blonde, but that’s as close as he’s willing to get.
The house sits in a clearing that butts up to their property line and their own house, and then the woods begin again. They share a long winding driveway back to the main road, and then Dean’s splits off and wraps around his two-story cement block home. It’s not exactly pretty, no grand Plantation home like his sister’s place, but he loves it for being strong and solid. The design makes what heat the summer has stay out, and the whole place is filled with windows that let in sunlight and wake him in the morning.
Dean doesn’t buy curtains.
The physical therapist is named Lucas this time, and he’s harder than Mike, definitely Mike, but Dean likes him. Sometimes, after a long series of exercises and listing steps, Dean and Lucas will share a beer on the patio as Lucas smokes and discusses the area or Dean’s progress. They talk music, but Dean is just learning his own preferences so he has little to argue about.
He seems to enjoy classic rock, has a strange niggling belief that he knows some of the songs when they come on, and Lucas supports that by burning him CDs of Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. Dean will open the windows sometimes and blast the music as he sits in the middle of his living room and wonders if he should get a TV or a couch.
Those are the good days. On the bad days Dean ends up on some surface, sometimes the bed and sometimes the floor, unable to take himself from one place to another. His headaches come back frequently, his leg aches too much, or he’s overwhelmed with rage and despair. Those are the days when his Swiss cheese memory betrays him. Rebecca is Rachel and Mike is Mark, he’s back in Atlanta suffering at the hands of nameless tormentors, and his vision is red and bloody.
Lucas finds him like that one day, sprawled out on the floor with his hands buried in the old green carpet and his pants soiled. The physical therapist helps him up, washes him, and then brings him painkillers. He hesitantly mentions an in-home nurse, just someone to watch Dean until he’s stronger, and Dean not so hesitantly tells him where to go.
Ultimately Dean knows Lucas is right. If nothing else he needs an emergency contact for when things get really bad. They told him the headaches could last for a year or longer, and the treacherous quality of his leg makes the concrete under the thin carpets downstairs a hazard he can’t afford. That doesn’t change how badly he wants to be independent.
Maybe he wasn’t so stubborn before the accident, who knows really, but whatever he used to be like now he can’t stand the thought of leaning on some stranger. Asking Lucas for help while he was there was hard enough.
One night in late September Dean’s sitting on the patio with Lucas sipping water and half-spaced on pain killers while the day dwindles past. It had been a hard session, and he aches everywhere through the haze of opiates. For a moment, he thinks Lucas’ voice is a little deeper, somewhat familiar, and he doesn’t hear what the physical therapist says, just the familiar tone.
“I said do you even have a snow shovel?”
He drags himself to the present and focuses in on Lucas’ salt and pepper beard.
“I have a shovel. I haven’t really looked in detail.” He frowns at his empty water. When had that happened?
Lucas shakes his head mournfully. “Dude, that’s not good. Look, let me go winter shopping for you and you can pay me back. I know what kind of supplies you need.”
“Yeah, whatever. There’s still a couple months before winter is gonna hit Lucas.”
The physical therapist laughs until his eyes are watering. “Maybe where you come from, but up here winter is just around the corner. Haven’t you noticed how cold it’s getting already?”
Dean had noticed the temperature dropping, the way the cold makes his knee ache right above his stump, but he didn’t think much of it at the time. Autumn had just really started, and he’s been enjoying the leaves changing color.
“I get it man. Just get the stuff and I’ll pay you back.”
“In the meantime, if you won’t consider getting help maybe you will think about getting a hobby. Something to engage your mind and keep you from being so…reflective.”
He looks up at that, sees the way Lucas is focused on the neighbor’s house, and tries to find an appropriate response.
“What’s wrong with being reflective?”
Lucas sighs and rubs his thumb along the neck of his beer bottle. “Your doctors told you not to push the memory thing, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Well constantly thinking about how your memory doesn’t work is pushing the memory thing. You need to get out. You need friends. You need a hobby.”
“Shit Leon, I guess maybe I’ll take up knitting. You can come over; we can sit in a circle and chat about boys and our day.”
“Lucas.” Dean feels his cheeks go bright red, but Lucas is only smiling gently into the distance. “And my grandmother taught me to knit when I was six. I make an incredible set of mittens.”
He laughs off the shame of his slip, and considers making some concession in the interest of showing Lucas his gratitude.
----
Dean avoids going to town as much as he can. While there isn’t much that he can’t find there, the setting is off-putting. The whole thing is designed as a hippie wonderland. There are permanent stalls set up for local vendors, an indoor organic food market, and almost fifty shops that brand themselves unique, vintage, handmade, and local. His bi-weekly shopping trips are done at speed, and with his breath held to avoid the stink of patchouli.
He’s limping towards his truck, listing slightly after yesterday’s session, when something catches his eye. Later Dean will think maybe the sun hit the gleaming metal just right, or maybe his prosthetic lost traction for half a second and he stumbled and turned. Whatever it was, accident, fate, Dean saw the metal and plastic and knew.
It’s a beast, weighs thirty pounds and takes up a great deal of space on his kitchen table, but Dean’s fingers slide over the ancient plastic keys reverently. He feels the need to use it, to start the tapping sound he’s heard in countless movies as some fedora wearing reporter breaks a big story and gets the girl.
Dean suddenly remembers he hasn’t watched a movie, has barely even seen full commercials since he woke up. The closest thing he has to an opinion on the media is that the Snuggles Bear is a demon. Still, he’s flooded with the sense that he has seen movies and they were black and white and had reporters with fedoras and giant press passes. It’s a good feeling, it comes with comfort and security, and his left hand moves out to the air beside him reaching for something he can’t remember or begin to name.
Which is when he comes crashing back to the reality that he is, for all intents and purposes, only a few months old. He draws the cover over the typewriter and limps to the stove to heat up soup and a grilled cheese.
----
Lucas made it a point to show Dean where the salt bags and snow shovel were now stored, and Dean wakes up on the tenth day of October to see snow piled up outside of his window and gleaming in the sunlight.
He waits an hour to see if the snow will melt a little under the sun, but the light is too weak and the air too cold. Since today is his shopping day Dean picks up the shovel and heads to the back door so he can dig his truck out of the foot of snow. From here he can see that the neighbors’ drive is plowed, and that the driveway beyond has been taken care of too.
Snow-shoveling, Dean quickly learns, is a bullshit job. It’s hard on the back, the legs, and Dean doesn’t have the most stable of stances. It doesn’t help that he’s way too tall for the little shovel, and he spends most of his work bent over and angled to spare his leg some of the weight as he tries to clear a space. After an hour he’s fallen three times, and managed to move just enough snow to hate himself and the weather more than he did when he woke up.
His hands are numb, his pants cuffs are soaked, and his right leg is screaming in protest. Dean limps through the side door and gives up. He can make it another day or two, just until he can find someone to plow the driveway for him or for the snow to melt, and he unhooks his leg and slips into a warm bath.
There’s pain, cramping and screaming in his foot and hands as they come back to life, and Dean rubs them helplessly and wonders why he ever listened to Rebecca when she told him to come north. He’s slightly proud that he got her name right though.
The warmth of the bath and the cessation of pain combine to lull him into a trance state, and he’s halfway asleep when he hears the deep scraping noise. Dean stumbles out of the bath, dries off as quickly as he can and reattaches his prosthesis before limping to the back door. What he sees makes him stop dead in the cold air and stare.
Blonde neighbor is using a shovel to get what black neighbor misses with the plow attached to the front of her truck. Up close he can see that blonde neighbor is cute, little-girl pretty and wrapped in what looks like hand-knitted pink and purple gear, and her smile when she spots Dean is bright and wide.
The other woman is elegantly beautiful, a softer Grace Jones, who doesn’t smile at him but does nod his way before lowering the plow blade and driving forward.
Dean bursts into movement, both arms waving and shouting before his brain really engages. Both women freeze in place, the truck rumbling filling the sudden tense silence and Dean trying to remember what it was he was going to say. The blonde kicks in first.
“Hey neighbor! Zoe and I saw that you were having some trouble with-“
He steps forward and cuts her off with what must be a fairly imposing glare. The door to the truck creaks open and the second woman, Zoe apparently, steps out. She’s maybe an inch or two taller than him, and her jaw is tight with a tension the blonde doesn’t seem to be feeling.
“Look ladies, it’s nice of you to roll over here and help the cripple, but useless as I am I can hire a snowplow person.”
Zoe’s left hand balls into a fist and the little blonde steps nimbly in front of her with a smile still on her face, but less feeling behind it.
“Oh hey, yeah, no problem. Sorry we just get a little overeager to be neighborly. But since we’re almost finished maybe we could-“
“Hell no. Amy get in the truck. This prick doesn’t want help we don’t give it to him.”
Amy’s voice is pure sugar and sunshine, but Zoe’s is whiskey and the South. It makes Dean think of home in the obscure way he has. Whether that home is the place he can’t remember or the hospital in Atlanta he can’t be sure.
The women share a look, and then Zoe throws her hands up in disgust and storms back to the truck before taking off. Amy smiles fondly at the empty space before turning back to Dean.
“She gets a little touchy about the c-word. No big deal. Look, Mr. Hunt, we just wanted to be helpful alright? I’m sorry you took it wrong but-“
Cutting her off seems to be the new basis of their relationship.
“Your roommate’s too politically correct if the word cripple pisses her off. As for helping I-“
Now it’s Amy’s turn to cut in. A small, gloved hand rises into the air and her pink lips form a lopsided smile that is totally forced and a little sad.
“She gets offended because her right arm is a hand and ten inches short. Also, she’s my partner, for the last seven years. You have a nice day Mr. Hunt, and if you change your mind we’re in the phone book listed under Zigorski. I promise we’re the only ones.”
Amy flits off, feet finding easy traction on the mostly finished driveway, and Dean watches her reach the split in the driveways and turn left before he realizes that she knew his last name.
----
Lucas is there a few days later sharing Dean’s stew and moaning over every spoonful.
“So you chose cooking as a hobby? Because this is excellent Dean. I could eat this for days.”
Dean breaks off a hunk of the bread he got at the bakery and butters it before he finds how he wants to word the next question.
“Did you tell the lesbians next door about me?”
For a moment Dean is honestly worried his physical therapist will choke to death on his stew. When he finally gets it under control though Lucas stares at him through watery eyes.
“Dean, please tell me you used that term for a reason other than homophobia.”
His defenses hit before his pride can argue. “No I can’t remember their names.”
All traces of animosity leave Lucas and he looks away to give Dean a moment to regroup.
“Amy and Zoe. Amy has a terrible joke about it that you’ll eventually hear. In the meantime though, just work on one name or the other. Or say the women next door. That would work too.”
“You still haven’t answered my question.” He pops a large chunk of stew beef into his mouth and chews while Lucas splutters and tries to figure out how to respond.
“Ye- maybe. Maybe I told them one or two things. Like you were new to the area, and in need of some friends. I might have done that.”
“And about my leg, or my…episodes?” Dean’s whole body is whipcord tight, because he honestly likes Lucas when he isn’t busy hating him for the amount of pain he deals out. If Lucas has betrayed his trust though...
“The leg. Not how, just that I was helping you with it. I’m Zoe’s physical therapist too, or I was before she stopped needing me. She’s the one your old nurse Rebecca treated. Zoe was in the same hospital as you once when her arm was amputated.”
He’s not happy about it, but Dean figures he can live with that.
“Well I don’t need to form a support group for cripples or anything so-“
“Dean Hunt, I have put up with your outbursts about my cologne, my potential sadism, and my love of Kenny G, but I will not sit here and listen to you denigrate yourself and my friend to nothing but your medical conditions. You’re more than a missing leg, idiot, and I don’t want you in a support group I want you to have friends. I’d like to be your friend honestly, but after the many times I’ve seen you vulnerable I doubt you’d allow that.”
Dean’s flabbergasted, utterly unable to come up with anything in response, and then finally he hears his voice sounding distant and stupid.
“I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know if I’ve ever had any.”
“Well you’re learning to cook, and you’re learning to cope, so maybe you can learn to buddy up with people.” Lucas’s smile is warm and honest. “Especially if you feed them like this all the time.”
They go back to their stew, conversation turning light and easy, and Dean considers the many options he has for apologizing to the neighbors.
----
It takes a week for Dean to figure out how to make amends. The early snow has melted at that point, but temperatures are still incredibly low. Dean’s learned to live with the constant ache that the weather inspires, and he goes to town and buys the most non-homeopathic, over-the-counter painkiller he can in the interest of not being drugged out all the time.
The day he stands in the kitchen for two hours baking cupcakes from scratch the sky has turned cloudy and the wind is rattling the dry leaves off of their branches and driving them into the windows. He honestly can’t tell if it’s the sound or the fact that he has no idea if they’ll accept his peace offering, but Dean’s on high alert the whole time.
He’s in the middle of icing a cupcake when a high-pitched noise cuts through his internal repetition of the website’s icing tips. Dean drops the knife and limps quickly to the door. Something about the sound, a cry of desperation and sorrow, makes his blood run cold and his hands shake.
His back door opens on a yard full of nothing, no one is there, and Dean isn’t sure what he was expecting. Except then he looks down to see a puppy, about the size of his boot, sitting on the doorstep and looking up at him hopefully as it whines pathetically.
Something clenches in Dean’s chest at those big brown eyes, and he bends down without thinking and scoops the puppy up.
The little ball of fur trembles in his grip, turns those pleading eyes up again, and thumps its tail weakly against his wrist as it licks tentatively at his hand. Dean’s heart just about breaks when the puppy finds a bit of icing and goes at licking his fingers with gusto.
There’s no telling where it came from, or what it might be carrying with it, but the puppy is staying here. Dean knows that already. He rubs idly at the thing’s bony ribs under thick fur before heading into the kitchen.
“I don’t have any dog food puppy. I don’t really have anything. Plus, I can barely take care of myself. You’re gonna have to help me out here. I don’t even know if I like dogs.”
The puppy tilts its head and gives him a quizzical look. Dean’s chest clenches again, and he speaks without thinking.
“My brother could give you this puppy-dog look and you’d just buy right into it.”
He wakes up an hour later according to the clock on the microwave, with the puppy licking his face and whining piteously, and a headache much like those first ones.
Dean doesn’t remember what he said.
---
He gives it another shot the next day. He can’t remember the exact name the woman gave him, but he flips through the fairly thin phone book until he finds an address near his. It starts with a z, and that feels right.
The phone rings twice, and then the bright voice he recognizes as Ann answers. “Hello neighbor!”
A full three seconds pass before Dean’s internal voice says, caller id, and he relaxes.
“Hi, hey, uh-“
“You want to come over here or have me come over there? Zoe’s at work, but maybe that’s good. I can get to know you a bit, and then pretend I was vetting you and you passed.”
They settle on her coming over, Dean doesn’t thank her for not making a big deal of giving his leg a break, and then he puts a bowl of milk soaked chow down for Bonham and places the cupcakes on the table as if they were always sitting there.
Dean answers the door on the first knock, wiping his hands on his jeans, and then gestures for her to follow him into the kitchen. Ally slips her knit hat off exposing golden curls before she drops into a chair and plucks up a cupcake.
“So, your apology is baked goods? Feel free to be rude any time.” Her smile is bright, and Dean feels his own lips quirk in answer.
“Don’t get used to it. I might not regret next time.”
Her lips part in a shocked “o” and then one hand settles on her chest. “If anything you’ll feel worse once you get to know me. Zoe says I’m just like a kid and that makes – oh my god puppy dog!”
Her hands, not much bigger than the puppy itself, lift the squirming bundle and she buries her face in his fur as she murmurs and laughs.
“Oh yes, yes, most adorable, yes, puppy kisses and puppy breath, oh my god! I’m going to steal you and take you home and name you Sunny for the sunshine. Yes I will sweet girl!”
“Him. His name is Bonham. You’re not stealing him.”
Bright blue eyes peer over fluffy brown fur wickedly. “Her, Dean. That’s her vulva. Boy puppies have a penis closer to the center, girl puppies have vulva that go inside. Also, you cannot name a puppy after an alcoholic drummer. We’ll compromise, we’ll name her Bonnie. Bonnie Tyler.”
“I am not – why would I need to agree with you on what to name my dog?” He’s amused despite himself, and she seems to pick up on the difference in tone. Her grin is so big it has dimples.
“Because I’m going to help you raise her, and take her for walkies, and teach her a ton of tricks. Oh! And buy little ribbons for her ears. Pink ribbons. You’ll like those won’t you.”
Dean bites into a cupcake and slumps back into his chair. “Is this how you make friends? Steal their dog’s love and take over their lives?”
The blue studies him again and practically sparkles. “Yes.”
---
Amy, not Ann or Ally, is apparently not joking. She becomes a fixture in Dean’s house, and the first thing she does is proclaim they’re going furniture shopping. Dean points out that he has a kitchen table, a computer desk, and a bed, but that doesn’t seem to be enough for her.
When Dean’s response is that he doesn’t want to spend a couple grand on handmade hippy furniture Amy gives him a loud sigh and pats his shoulder softly.
“That’s why we don’t go into the tourist town.”
It turns out the whole time Dean was struggling with the smell of patchouli and overpriced trinkets there was another town about five miles away that the locals used, as opposed to the tourist trap he’s been visiting. There’s a regular supermarket that carries preservative laden food and real sugar, a pharmacy with pharmaceuticals, and an Ashley store they spend two hours in.
Amy directs the delivery men where to place the furniture, pink mouth pursed as she judges distances and placement. Dean watches helplessly with Bonnie in his arms as his house becomes a home. After the men leave Amy pushes him into the big armchair he picked and then makes the worst casserole he’s ever tasted.
“I’m sorry Dean. Zoe’s the cook. I promise from now on Zoe will cook.”
Dean turns a forkful over and then forces a smile. “It’s – uh it’s fine.”
She shakes her head sadly and puts another forkful away. “Anyway, what’s with the ancient typewriter?”
He looks over to the machine, still taking up space on his kitchen table, and then back to her curious gaze.
“Lucas thought I needed a hobby. To get me out of my head. I thought I’d try writing.”
Amy’s smile is back despite her mouthful of cheese glop. “Oh? How’s it going? Are you the next Hemingway?”
He thinks of the pages of nonsense, stories about ghosts and monsters, all of them full of blood and suffering, and a protagonist that is searching for someone he can’t seem to find or live without.
“No. It’s crap. But it means I’m not just sitting around thinking of how I can’t remember anything.”
One blonde eyebrow lifts delicately as Amy pushes her plate away.
“Head injury on top of the leg?”
They’ve never discussed it, and Dean wonders how many times he’s called her the wrong name and she hasn’t said anything out of kindness.
“Doesn’t matter. I deal. When am I gonna get my do-over on your partner?”
Amy bites her lip for a second before putting her fork down. “Zoe is…grumpy sometimes. She holds grudges. It’s nothing personal and she’ll totally get over it, but until that happens you just got to let her get there on her own. She doesn’t like to be pushed.”
“And yet she’s with you?”
He manages to duck the flying casserole just in time.
---
If asked the top five ways he wanted to meet Zoe this would not have been in the extended one hundred list.
Dean has a bad day, which begins with Bonnie destroying his shoe and then leads to some sort of memory. If it’s any indication of what Dean’s life was like before maybe he doesn’t want his memories back.
He’s in a backyard, very young, and his arms ache horribly as he tries to hold up a gun and hit a target. A man, shadowy but there, leans over his shoulder and speaks in a gruff voice.
“You can do this Dean. You gotta do this to protect Sammy. Stay stable, hold the gun the way I showed you, and squeeze the trigger don’t pull it.”
The gun kicks, and Dean takes a face full of hot metal before landing on his ass. He’s crying, shaking, and the shadowy man sounds sorry and disgusted at the same time.
“Okay kiddo. We’ll start again tomorrow with a smaller caliber. Let’s get some ice on your face now.”
The scene shifts, a run-down house and a baby, and Dean is waving a spoon around and making airplane noises through his cotton-stuffed nose.
“C’mon Sammy, open up for the airplane so you can grow big and strong.”
“Come on Dean, eyes open. Eyes open.”
Amy is in his face, eyes wide and skin pale, and two arms are hooked under his armpits as he’s being drug across the carpet.
For a moment Dean almost lashes out against the force pulling him, and then that urge subsides and all that is left is the need to throw up, immediately and as hard as possible, in an attempt to expel the little marching band living in his skull.
The whiskey and honey voice of Amy’s partner comes over his shoulder. “Get a cold rag and his meds baby girl, and a bucket.”
Amy disappears, and Dean is settled into the comfy armchair before Zoe crouches down in front of him.
“You know where you are Dean?”
“Home. Hurts.” He grabs at the hand closest to him and touches fake flesh before Zoe replaces it with a real one.
“Yep. Good guess. You get these spells often?”
“Enough.”
Amy reappears and drops down at his side with the cold rag, but Dean pushes it away in favor of the bucket, loses breakfast and some extra, and then lets Amy settle him back and drape the damp coolness over his eyes.
“Okay Dean, okay we got you. It’s alright now.” Her voice is soothing, soft, and Dean is lost for a moment.
“Rebecca, it’s bad.”
“Yeah, it’s bad. I can see that.” Hands brush through his hair and settle on his temples before fingertips begin a gentle rotation. “But it’s going to get better.”
Pills press to his lips, and Dean gratefully swallows them and wishes they would use the IV. It’s faster. Slowly, surely, the world goes dark and the pain is as distant a memory as the baby he once loved and fed.
----
Dean wakes to a dark living room, the sound of a door closing, and the smell of something delicious. His leg buckles on his first try to get out of the chair, but eventually he manages to limp to the kitchen where Zoe is making stir fry. Her velvety brown eyes take him in for a moment before she points to the table and goes back to flipping rice in a pan.
“Sorry ‘bout that.” He sounds wrecked, and Dean wonders if he screamed at them the way he used to in Atlanta.
Zoe’s mouth twists once in an expression Dean knows very well, and she flicks off the oven and dumps the rice into one of the serving bowls Amy made him buy.
“You should be. I could tell how much you were enjoying it. Hey, while you’re apologizing for things you shouldn’t I hear the Kennedy assassination is still up for grabs.”
“You’re kinda bitchy huh?”
Zoe tosses the chopped vegetables into the skillet before looking Dean’s way.
“And you’re kind of a prick, but we’re gonna get along just fine ‘cause my girl insists we will. She’s unfortunately always right ‘bout that kinda thing.”
“Or she makes herself right?” Zoe’s eyes fly up to catch his and she starts laughing with a surprised look on her face. Dean joins her.
When Amy comes through the door to find them like that her smile is overwhelming.
----
“So, it’s time to share war stories.”
Their nightly ritual now is to dine together, Dean and Zoe taking turns at cooking while Amy plays with Bonnie or attempts to help. She’s not terrible at chopping things.
Dean finishes massaging the rub into the chicken and slides the pan into the oven.
“Is it? I missed the memo.” He reaches down and adjusts the leg of his pants, a habit he’s picked up and hates. “Maybe we should focus on mashed potatoes.”
Amy looks up from where she’s peeling potatoes. “We could do that.”
“I was a firefighter in Atlanta. Went into an apartment building where they had been paying off their inspector. Beam collapsed and pinned me down for about five minutes until one of my brothers came in and dragged me out, but the damage was done.” Zoe’s face is set, challenging and sure, and Dean bristles at the idea that he’ll back out if she can talk so easily about her own damage.
“Car accident. Bounced my head on the pavement and got pinned under the car. Sister died.”
Zoe is watching him thoughtfully, and Dean almost says something further, something cutting, but he hears a sniff behind him. When he turns he sees that Amy is crying, big fat tears, and the knife is forgotten on the cutting board as she knuckles at her eyes.
She steps forward, throws her arms around Dean, and he’s frozen in place as the little body presses against him.
“Dean, oh Dean, I’m so sorry. Is that the picture in your living room? You must miss her so much.”
He doesn’t say he doesn’t remember her. He thinks instead of the baby in his memory, of sliding the spoon into her tiny mouth and then wiping the food off her chin. Why was he in charge of feeding her at such a young age? Were they just that close? Was he an overprotective big brother, did he love her to distraction? He thinks he did.
For the first time since Dean woke up in the hospital he lets himself be comforted.
---
They’re crossing the street, and Dean sees what’s coming long before Amy does. She’s too busy tilting her head back to catch snowflakes on her tongue as Bonnie pulls on her leash.
He grabs her at the last second, hooking his fingers into her shirt and pulling her back to avoid the big classic car that almost runs her over. The driver is hard to see with how the sun is shining off the windshield, but Dean gets the impression of a shocked stare. It probably scared him as bad as it has scared Dean, but his temper gets the better of him and he slaps the hood of the car with a pang of regret.
“Watch it asshole!”
Amy pulls on him, gives an apologetic wave at the driver, and then leads Dean across the street to the supermarket.
“You saved my life.” Her expression is just as sweet and open as always, but something about the words gives Dean a rush along with a cold chill. “You’re my hero.”
There’s something familiar about this, something that strikes at Dean’s core, and he takes a breath before pulling her into a hug.
The car lingers with him. He honestly believes he must have been some kind of mechanic, and maybe that’s why he appreciates it so much. Clean lines, beautiful black paint job, chrome and steel containing all that horsepower. He thinks of his truck, fairly modern and clean, but man, he’d love to drive something like that.
“What kind of car was that? I’ve never seen one like it before.” Amy’s already ducking through the door, laughing when Bonnie barks at the bell ringing. How she talked the owner into letting her bring the dog in Dean still doesn’t know.
“A ’67 Chevy Impala.” It rolls off his tongue like a prayer. “One of the best cars ever made.”
Blue eyes cut to him and then light up. “Oh my god you’re a car fanatic. And here I thought the only machinery you got excited about was that old Underwood.”
“They’re both excellent machines.” He watches her drop noodles into the cart, and reaches in to pull out the angel hair and replace it with linguine. “Show some respect.”
Amy rolls her eyes and adds angel hair on top of the linguine. “Blah, blah, men love machines. Stereotype.”
“I’ve been in your house and accidentally found your goodie drawer. You ladies love machines too.”
She has the grace to blush even as she sticks her tongue out and pulls Bonnie away from the meat case.
----
It is officially Christmas time. Dean gets picked to make the roast, and he spends ten hours hovering near the kitchen to check its progress. There’s two feet of snow outside, and Amy is supposed to be coming to pick him up at some point. Bonnie dances side to side in front of the stove smelling the air and barking excitedly.
Dean finally gets sick of waiting and packs the roast up before attaching Bonnie’s leash. They had to go to special training classes, because Bonnie can pull him off balance without really trying. She hangs close, obedient but desperate, and Dean shakes his head fondly.
“You’re gonna get meat mutt, so give it a rest.” Bonnie’s big eyes admonish him, and when he comes out of the house into the cold air there’s a moment of breathlessness before he adjusts to the temperature change. He begins limping down the driveway, unable to handle the treacherous terrain between the houses, only to see Amy parked at the end of his driveway and standing outside of her truck as she chats with someone wrapped in a giant parka.
Her head turns towards Dean, and she smiles and gives a big wave. Parka guy half turns, sees Dean, and then runs for it into the snow.
Chapter 2
Masterpost
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Date: 2013-10-29 03:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-14 05:20 pm (UTC)where do we begin chap 1
Date: 2014-03-06 01:52 am (UTC)Re: where do we begin chap 1
Date: 2014-04-04 09:22 pm (UTC)