– Monday, May 28th, 2018 –
It's been three weeks since I woke up in hospital, and so far, the only memories I got back from the past year, are memories provoked by Finnley in some way. The caramel helped to remember an intimate moment, the room in the shabby apartment helped me remember a fight with Finnley in that exact room.
Finnley made it his job to help me remember as much as possible, step by step, without telling me much. On Sunday, he kept to himself most of the day, writing down things in a notebook, texting with others, not telling me what it was about. I asked him what was wrong, but he only sighed, shaking his head, telling me he wasn't allowed to tell.
On Monday, however, he was all back to talking and giving me attention – that is, after he came back from his morning appointment with Harvey, and a therapy session. He's always a tad bit more active after one of those sessions, and he's always at his worst right before meeting Harvey.
"I got your parents to agree on letting us go out for dinner tonight." Finnley flops down on the bed next to me, his smile soon turning into a frown. "Unless you're not doing great?" He brushes aside some hair in my face, sending me a worried look.
"I'm a bit... dizzy." I admit, rolling over, closer to him, snuggling my face against his chest while he puts an arm around me.
"Did you take you meds?"
"Yeah, not helping yet. I'll be fine in an hour."
"So, no date tonight?"
"Definitely a date tonight." I mumble with muffled words against his chest. "Where're we going?"
"We're going to eat sushi." He hums appreciatively. "It's my favourite food, and you just have to tasteit."
"Is it going to give me back another memory?" I smile, though he can't see my face at all. "Because you emphasised 'taste'?"
"I hope it does." He chuckles and the vibration in his chest causes me to roll away a bit, disliking the sudden quick movements. "You look a bit pale."
"We've been doing a lot the past days. How come you're not exhausted?"
"Treatment." He shrugs, cocking his head a bit. "Besides, I've been recovering from everything for over two months now."
"But you miss your kidney."
"And I have a slightly malfunctioning second, yes." He nods, shuffling closer, leaning his head above mine to stare down at me. "But I got a bit used to it."
"And how long do you think it'll take before you get a new kidney?"
"Depends..." He looks away shortly, before he smiles for a bit. "As long as I'm not deteriorating in health, it won't happen any time soon. Oliver isn't capable of donating for another couple of months, and who knows what happens until then.
"Why not just accept your mom's?"
"Because..." Finnley groans a bit. "I don't want to have anything to do with her." he nudges me teasingly. "And hey, the one kidney I have is doing a reasonable job. I only need dialysis once a week and it's not getting worse."
"I thought you could live perfectly well with one kidney."
"Yeah, you can, which is why people can donate one." Finnley chuckles again. "Mine is at about 45%, but since I lost more than just a kidney, they treat me differently. I'm more at risk, my liver is still recovering, and they took blood, Cris. My body simply hasn't got the needed abilities to heal on its own. The treatment with dialysis is temporary, until the rest works fine again, or my kidney should get worse over time. I don'tneeda new kidney per see. I might need one in the future. But if I can get one, they will do it before I get much worse, since right now, I'm still strong enough to survive the surgery. If it deteriorates, I might not be fit enough to have surgery in the first place."
"Oh, wow." I frown, staring up at him. "But... you're not like... dying?"
"If they wouldn't treat me, my body would eventually be poisoned, slowly. Then I would die. But as long as I get the treatment, take the meds, I should be fine for a while."
"So, you won't get the transplant soon?"
Finnley shakes his head, smiling a bit, pecking a quick kiss on my lips. "Nope, it's just good to know Oliver is a great match, and by the time I need his kidney, he'll give it to me."
"I thought you needed it quickly, because your health is as bad as it is..."
"My health, and I think you mean the exhaustion, is caused by multiple factors, like anaemia, the kidney, the liver, let's not start about the mental state I'm in."
"Honestly, your mental state, most of the time, seems fine."
Finnley snorts and shakes his head. "You sleep a lot, hon. I'm nowhere near fine."
"Oh."
"Though being with you helps." He hums, leaning in to catch my lips with his.
We share a slow, lazy kiss, until my head starts spinning too much and I pull back, cuddling close to him again.
"Get some more sleep, sweety." Finnley whispers, pecking kisses on top of my head. "And let me know if you're fit to go out for dinner once you wake up."
* * * * *
"What's your biggest..." I overthink my question, while Finnley waits, staring out of the window with an amused smile on his face, his eyes tingling happily. "guilty pleasure?"
He laughs out, and Stan looks amused in the back mirror, while Nathan – who I'm not entirely comfortable with having around yet – smiles in content.
"Spice Girls."
I snort in response, sending Finnley a look full of disbelief. "Are you serious?"
"Hey, the lyrics are quite catchy." Finnley shrugs for a bit.
"You might be gay, that's too gay for comfort..." I mutter, frowning still.
"Oliver and I always sang loudly to their songs whenever they are on the radio." Finnley – again shrugging – chuckles a bit. "Do you wannabe my lover?" He whisper-sings to me, causing me to smirk, leaning in to peck a kiss on his lips. Not to silence him, because secretly, Finnley has a golden voice and I don't mind hearing him sing.
Just, any song but that.
"What's your ultimate idea for a date?" Finnley asks, as it is his turn, playing with my hand, staring at it fascinated.
"Any date, as long as it's with you."
"Cheesy!" Finnley giggles, leaning his head onto my shoulder. "Likewise, Cris."
"Good."
"Favourite movie?"
"Shawshank Redemption."
"Classic answer, Godfather part 2." I answer my own question.
"We're here, guys." Stan parked the car and I look up to find we're in yet another city. Stan suggested being our driver for tonight, taking Nathan out on a date in a different restaurant, while we have our own date in a sushi restaurant. The idea of Stan and Nathan dating is weird to me, since I don't know any better than them being each other's biggest enemies.
It's yet another thing I have to adapt to, since I forgot the developments that caused them to end up together as a couple; for months already.
We separated ways a block ago, as Finnley leads me through a street, and onto a square filled with restaurants and bars. That's when I suddenly feel a bit weird. It's some sort of Déjà vu, as if I've been here before. There's no memories, no images in my mind that go along with that feeling, but the feeling is strong.
"What's wrong?" Finnley asks, and I noticed I came to a stop, staring at a building that is clearly a bar during the day, a club at night. As soon as I close my eyes, there's images of a dancefloor with lights in the ground, the music that comes from the bar making the images come to live right there and then.
"Cris?" Finnley squeezes my hand. "You remember something?"
I do, very clearly, remember how I was here, just not able to know what I was doing exactly in that memory, or who was with me. "I was here before."
"Yeah, you were." Finnley confirms my thoughts and feelings. "How much do you remember?"
"It's more feelings and flashes, not a real memory." I open my eyes again, looking at Finnley, feeling the urge to kiss him and cheer him up, though he isn't sad at all.
I frown, but I do answer the need, pulling him in my arms, kissing him deeply. My eyes closed, my lips touching his, him whimpering appreciatively because of the kiss. Along with the song coming from the bar, causes more memories to flash through my mind. How I pushed Finnley against a wall, how the kiss was heated, aggressive even...
..."You started," I remember Finnley snapping at me in a mocking way, right after I broke the kiss.
"I hate you." The words left my mouth, though in this moment I can't ever imagine telling him I hate him.
"You don't." Finnley sounded hurt, insecure, unsurely of his words.
"I do!" I called out. "I hate the fact you broke my heart..."
"You broke my trust!" He yelled back...
I snap my eyes open, pulling away from him completely, watching him pant in front of me, gripping his side while gasping for air, staring bewildered at me.
"What the hell, Cris?" His eyes are wide. "Why'd ya scratch me?"
I stare at him. "I scratched...?"
"Fuck, that hurts!" He cries out, uncomfortable wobbling on his feet, hissing. "My scar's still soar, fool."
"I didn't know... I remembered... Finn?" My voice is a confused whisper, and when he makes eye-contact, he stops his ranting about the scratch and he seems to understand it wasn't just a memory.
"Oooh..." He still holds onto his side, taking in a deep breath. "That kiss?"
"That kiss?"
"The aggressive one? I bit you."
"Yes, Finn!?" I stare at him in horror. "I never hated you, right?"
Finnley lolls his head, biting his lip awkwardly. "We had a huge, and I mean hugefight a year ago. That kiss was our first meeting in months, and well... let's say it didn't end well."
"You said I broke your trust."
"I broke your heart. I know that was true now." He cocks his head a bit, visibly recovered from me scratching him. "Can we please get to the restaurant before we talk about that? I need to sit right now."
"Okay, sure." I nod, and follow him to the other side of the square, entering a sushi restaurant, where he did reservations for us.
We remain silent until we're seated at a table – a table Finnley nearly demanded to be seated, and there we first order drinks and the first round of sushi, before I speak up again. "Tell me about it."
"It wasn't a memory I was trying to provoke right now. There's more than a year worth of information that you lost, previous to that kiss."
"The caramel thing was later, I assume, and you did provoke that."
"That was because I had the means and opportunity to provoke that memory right then. I didn't think about songs being able to do the same, or more... I knew that they could, I didn't expect it to happen in front of Seven.
"What caused you to break my heart, and me to break your trust?"
"Can we keep it to a short version?"
"Okay..."
"We weren't a thing until last November, but we both expressed our feelings two years ago. We had this weird thing going on, where I was still recovering from a trauma from the first abduction, and you were recovering from that too, in different ways. You caught me with someone else, and you went ballistic because you felt like I was playing with your feelings. You told me some stuff, and left me. We didn't see each other for about three or four months after that."
"And how did I break your trust?"
"By leaving me when I needed you more then ever."
"Because you broke my heart?"
"Like I said... a year of events led up to that moment, I did break your heart, but when you were finally willing to listen to my explanation, you understood."
"Okay..." I mumble, not sure how to deal with this memory right now. It makes it even more frustrated to not remember what went ahead of it, and what came after; like Finnley's explanation.
"Are you... mad?"
"I'm confused, is all," I admit with a shrug.
"Are you going to let it get in the way of being together?"
I stare into his green eyes for a while, allowing the memory, and his short explanation to sink in a bit, before I shake my head. "No. Whatever happened then, we made up and we got together later, right?"
"We did, yes."
"Then I'll try and ignore that memory, and focus on the fact we got back together. I don't want to lose you."
His frown disappears, turning into a wide smile, and he leans over the table to demand a kiss, which I happily give him. "Thank you, Cris. I appreciate it."
"Well, I do realise my memory loss isn't only affecting me. It must be hard for you too."
"It is, really." He nods, a sad smile on his face. "Because there's things you don't remember, but you need to know them, while I don't want to relive them at all."
"Then why would you? Why not let anyone else help me?"
He snorts, squeezing my hand while looking amused. "First of all, this will make us stronger together. While you get to slowly process the past, I get to process it together with you. Secondly, I'm the smartest guy you know. Who else would come up with genius ways to help you remember?"
I laugh out, shaking my head a bit in disbelieve because of his second reason, but nod as soon as the laughter died down a bit. "You truly are the smartest person I know. And thanks, for doing this for me."
"I'd do anything for you, Cris." Finnley blushes a bit, but smiles nonetheless.
"So, why're we here? Which memory?"
"Well, I did not bring you here to provoke another memory, but more to make a new one. We did go here on our first date, so you might remember something tonight. But this is about making new memories together."
"That's good. I'd like some new memories."
* * * * *
A/N Okay guys! Back with another question! What sort of date would you like to see happening between Cristian and Finnley? ^^