A Fight to Remember

Waiting for it to Pass Pt.1

A/N: These next few chapters are a little yucky as we work through Derek's story line. Hang in there!

Picking up several hours after last chapter.

Qualicum, January 2031

Derek

My head throbbed with pain I haven't felt since I could remember...ha ha. "Ohh," I groaned and winced. Moving only brought the painful realization that not only does my head hurt, but my back, shoulders, and neck. Everything hurt. Everything was sore. How did everything get so sore? Where the hell was I? What the hell did I do?

"Good, you're finally awake," a familiar low timbre rumbled.

"Mark?" I asked. What was he doing here? Wait, where was I again? I opened my eyes, oh the light! I covered my eyes with one hand and waved my other arm, trying to orient myself. Bad idea. I knocked something over, it landed with a thunk, and there was a glugging noise as liquid spilled to the floor. A second later the familiar waft of strong alcohol invaded my olfactory sense. "Crap."

"You drank this?" Mark asked. I heard the bottle scrape against the floor. He must've picked it up.

"What?" Drank what? What did I drink? It definitely wasn't scotch. I hoped it wasn't scotch. I just couldn't remember right now.

There was rustling noises, my blanket was pulled off me and I cringed at the sudden cold that greeted my lower body. I tried to blink again and got a blurry image of Mark on his knees beside me, using my blanket to absorb the liquor spill on the floor. Right. No one was really living here, why would I have cleaning supplies?

"You drank tequila?" Mark sounded like he was scolding a six year old for drinking coffee.

"I drank tequila?" I couldn't picture it, I wasn't a tequila person... why would I drink tequila?

"Yeah," Mark replied. "Really bad tequila... horrible cheap nasty tequila. This is like, college girl tequila,"

Oh God... "I don't remember..."

"You know that amnesia trick only works once."

Even in my hangover state, I wanted to laugh, but a strange urgent feeling ebbed in my stomach. "I-I have to-" Before I could contemplate anything more I dashed to the bathroom and hurled. After a few moments of hanging over the toilet empty and sputtering I collapsed on the floor, my head between my knees. The world blurred and spun around. My hangover headache doesn't allow me to move, so I'm stuck smelling mildly of sweat and vomit. I haven't felt this bad since I fell off a cliff.

Mark entered the bathroom offering a styrofoam cup of water and a couple aspirin. I accepted it, gratefully swallowing the pills and chugging down the water to relieve my dehydration. "More." I asked, holding the cup up. Mark filled the cup up from the bathroom sink and handed it to me.

"What the hell happened man?" He asked as he slid down the wall to sit beside me.

I'm at a loss for words."I-uh-" I've never been the stammering type. Somehow words always came at the right time for me, except for now. Memories started to surface about what happened yesterday, and with the memories came the feelings, which swirl uncomfortably in my mind and heart. "I confronted Sarah," I said finally.

Mark winced, "Oooh."

"Yeah... and I'm not him."

You're not my husband.

Confusion marked my friend's tan features, "Not who?" he asked.

"I'm not Michael Robertson," I said, both relieved and pained at the same time. Relieved because it made sense, now... there was no more disjointed painful doubts in my head. Pained because there was still a void. An ugly black hole that spun and threatened to consume. If I wasn't Michael Robertson, who was I?