The photograph in his hands was well-worn around the edges, and David kept in his sigh as his fingers traced around the image of he and Kathryn by rocky cliff faces, his arms wrapped around and her hands holding onto his. He'd loved her -- not him, specifically, but the man he'd used to be. He'd already known that, but only superficially. Kathryn was a wife, two people get married because they love each other. Every time Kathryn came to visit, the hope that came and died in her eyes each time he struggled to find the words to comfort her -- it died because, once, he'd loved her, and she still loved him. But the photographs, the ones that she'd kept bringing him...they were proof. There was more than just a marriage, there'd been an entire life.
It still couldn't stop any of it from feeling like less of a dream. Finally letting his sigh go, David dropped the photo back towards the bedspread and picked up the remote, turning on the television and aimlessly flicking through the channels. Just another object in the long list of things that hadnât made sense to him since heâd awoken:Â how he could remember how to work a television, what flavors he liked in his coffee, but not -- anything else. Dr. Whale had described it as having been a different part of his memory, and that he should feel lucky it hadn't all been wiped from him, and it was better just to let things come as they did; his head would heal itself if he just kept his mind off of it.
Easier said than done. Because when he did allow himself to move past everything, inevitably, his thoughts would wander. And they always wandered back to the feeling of a hand cupped under his, being driven through the woods, half-delirious, just knowing that he had to --
He was started back out of it by a flicker of movement out of the corner of his eye, but when he looked to the door, it was already moving back down the hall. And this was why he shouldn't allow his thoughts to wander, because he could've sworn the flicker was topped with dark, cropped hair he'd seen before.
David had slipped off the bed, into his shoes and out his door before he had the chance to doubt himself, calling out, "Mary Margaret!" He slowed himself to a stop when he finally saw past what had driven him out of his room and down the hall to her, and to the receptionists that were manning his floor giving him looks. "You aren't -- that's your name, right?" He stumbled over his words, making excuses as if the first thing he'd asked after Kathryn had left that night he'd been found hadn't been the name of the dark-haired woman that'd been just outside the glass. "Sorry, I just -- I saw you outside the door."
