• This is going to be the last chapter for a while (it's a bit unedited, couldn't be bothered). Taking a small break from writing to enjoy the summer while it's actually here. Cheers, guys! •

He stared at me for eternities. Blue eyes. He saw blue eyes when his lips salvaged mine. Blue. Not brown.

There was a feeling inside me. Pain? No. Hurt? No, not that either. It was much crueler. Much colder. Jealousy?

His fingers suddenly trailed across my cheek. His eyes deepened and flickered, someone ticking inside them. He felt something. His fingertips trailed along my cheekbone like it was a string on his violin. Soft, but electrifying.

I stayed wooden, peering into his eyes. I could read them. For the first time, I could see his thoughts in them.

He was touching me, but he wasn't touching... me. He was feeling me, but he wasn't feeling me. When he kissed me, it wasn't my lips he was kissing. It was someone else's. She was there in his mind, waiting for him.

Blue.

His eyes were caught in the past. His body was. He was drowning in the present, out of time; trapped between his past and his present and me. Looking at me, he knew my lips weren't the ones that were supposed to be on his. Blue was in there, showing herself every time he kissed me, each brush of my lips painting her a little clearer. I was awakening these things, stirring them up to the surface. My lips... they brought fourth whoever she was.

I didn't know who he had been in the past, but I had to assume he had had lovers. The way he had kissed me... his lips were kissing as if they were used to cherishing a pair of lips with love; Used to dosing someone, molding a mouth into doing what he liked it to do. Biting. Moaning. Maybe even smiling.

But not my lips. His kisses belonged to another set of lips. And I was stealing them.

"I see glimpses..." He suddenly whispered. My eyes snapped to his again, seeing they had slid shut, his brows furrowed deeply—the same way they usually furrowed when he was playing. When he felt. "I see a woman.... I can't..."

Can't. He couldn't reach her.

"Blue eyes," He repeated and now opened his own deep oceans of blue. "I see blue eyes in my mind."

Blue eyes. The woman from his past life had had blue eyes that had glinted at him whenever he had kissed her. Made love to her. When he had told her that he loved her.

Because he had. Though war, pain, memory loss and living on the street, he still remembered those blue eyes. When he played, he saw those blue eyes. When he touched me and kissed me, he saw blue eyes. He saw the woman that he loved. I was but a vessel for him to channel his past through, a vessel to awaken them.

Awaken him.

He touched my cheek one last time, but then drew back. The shutters went down in his eyes and he was gone again. Closed.

He fell back and I felt my body clench at his withdrawal. Like the violin, I felt naked after he had played me. I wanted to cover myself, but it was a state of mind, incurable with even the thickest sweater. He had stripped my soul bare and left me cold and exposed.

And yet... I craved more of the sensation that had left me like this.

I watched him take a heavy seat on my coffee table. Head hung, he moved his hand over his eyes, letting his world fall dark. He had seen a glimmer of light and it had blinded him. Too much, too little. Years of fumbling in the dark, the light made him lightheaded.

"What do you remember?" I whispered again, staying up against the wall, watching him from afar. He didn't move at my words, but stayed silent. "What's... what's your earliest memory?"

He waited a whole minute before he finally shifted. His hand dropped into the pocket of his trench coat. Searching around, he pulled out a small scrap of plastic.

"Kuwait," He rasped. "ICU."

A hospital band. He had been abroad. Probably out-stationed to a military base. A mission gone wrong. Casualties. Hell raining down from heaven. Incoming on every angle. Then... nothing.

"Dog tags?" I asked.

His eyes flashed up and narrowed on me. My lips screwed shut, my deductions running away with me. He rose to his feet, stalked up to me, slowly; A predatory prowl.

"What do you know about me?" He breathed as he stopped in front of me. His hand touched the wall behind me, caging me in. It was exactly like his violin; he tossed me aside, but picked me up again the minute he changed his mind. The second I had something he wanted.

"Nothing," I whispered back.

"Bullshit." Was his judgement.

I swallowed. "I don't know anything. I... I've just seen your scars before."

When his eyes squinted, I took in a breath. Slowly, carefully, I moved my hands to his shirt. Undid his buttons. He stayed unmoving. He didn't flinch when my hand laid over his chest, touching his marks.

"I... I used to work at a senior care center," I volunteered, licking my dry lips. "They had veterans. Vietnam. Korea. Afghanistan. Their scars... they were just like yours."

Without looking at his eyes, I felt the confirmation inside him settle. He drew the same connection I had. Meeting his eyes, I let my hands drop again.

"No dog tags," He replied. Nothing.

I nodded vaguely, then waited. There was more. Not much, but more.

"They pulled me from the rubbles of a collapsed building. I don't remember..." His eyes shut, and the grit of frustration tainted his voice again. Always shutdown, always darkness. "I was wearing my uniform."

"Regiment?"

He shook his head and curled his hand into a fist against the wall. "Gone."

"What do you mean... gone?" His uniform had to have a badge. A name. Somewhere. Anywhere.

"The explosion," His teeth jarred as he forced it out. His breath hardened, his body tensed up. Anger rolled over him like a blanket. "They had to cut me out of it. It burned up in the fires... gone."

Gone. Like his memory.

My hand suddenly touched his chest again. He still didn't flinch, only glared down at me, the wrath storming inside his eyes. All that anger; Nobody to aim it at but himself. And me.

"I'm nobody," He told me. The fire in his eyes burned through my soul. "The police... there's nothing on me. I don't exist, Melody. I'm dead."

My brows furrowed at his final statement, the pain lacing through his words like a poisoned verdict. For the first time, I heard a crack in his voice. I'm dead.

Whoever he had been before this, that person was gone. They had buried him, let him go. The world had forgotten him.

No fucking wonder he practiced control. He had absolutely no idea of who he was. Life had given him a second chance, but had left him with no memory of anything concerning what his previous life before war had been like. Except for one thing.

That violin.

"Stay," I whispered. The real words I wanted to say got lodged in my throat. There was no way I'd ever forget him.

"For the violin?" He said the words like mockery. "For blue?"

"Yes." But there was so much more. So little, but so much more.

He watched me for a long time. He studied my eyes, the words caught in them, the dangerous feelings. Emotions.

"You want my shit in your life." He said it like a warning, but in truth it was an answer to another question. The one he always asked me. Why?

"I need..." I stopped my voice before it could say more. I almost broke my wall down for him. Almost.

Tony saw the crack. His eyes narrowed and watched my own eyes try and hold it together. He knew what was happening. He could see the mess. He could see the chaos. My chaos.

But he didn't cower away from a war.

~~~

I sat silently and listened to the water run in the bathroom. It had been nearly an hour. The time was almost 10am and Dan and Kyle hadn't come home from the farmer's market yet. Just as well.

I warmed my hands on my tea, the steam fogging up my view as I gazed out of the window. It was a quiet morning. Skies overcast. It held the ominous promise of more snow, but so far it stayed dry.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. What the hell was I doing with my life? I had no idea what I had become... what kind of mess I was pulling myself into with Tony. Whatever shrouded past hid behind the veil of his amnesia, the unease in my stomach told me it ran deeper than what appeared. There was so much more to him, so many questions unanswered...

I still had no clue about the blood. What had happened, what had caused it... I had taken his word like gospel and hadn't given it more thought. But now, as I reviewed every part of the past week I had gotten involved with Tony, the fucked-up-ness of the situation just became so clear, even the clouds outside couldn't hide it. Whatever this was, whatever we were doing... it wasn't healthy.

But I couldn't stop.

The door to the bathroom suddenly jarred. Setting my tea down, I stood up and turned around, my heart and breath pausing as I laid eyes on him.

I had borrowed another pair of jeans from Dan while I laundered his own. A shirt, too. Standing on bare feet, the clean pants and shirt fit snugly over his sculpted frame. The denim hung low on his hips and the gray V-neck beneath the plaided button-up shirt hung loosely over them. His eyes were downcast as he adjusted the sleeves, rolling them up to reveal his veined, scarred arms.

He had cut his beard. Trimmed it to a rough scratch against his cheekbones and jawline. His hair, washed and damp, was tied up in a bun, pulling it away from his face. For the first time, I saw the real Tony; The Tony that once existed.

I exhaled. He finally looked up and met my eyes, the steely blue firm. He gave me a slow nod.

The words weren't needed this time.

I tried to find anything to say. "Y-your laundry is almost done."

He gave another nod, then wordlessly walked into my bedroom. Like a puppy, I followed.

He went up to my bed and grabbed his trench coat that laid on it. Searching through his pockets, he picked something out, another mystery treasure from the depths of his coat. Taking a seat on my bed, he ran a hand over his shaved jawline, then held the item out to me. Blinking, I reached out for it.

"Anthony." I whispered. It was a partial name on a piece of plastic that had melted, something along the lines of an ID. His last name had melted off, but the 'y' of his first name still faintly spelled it out. "Your full name is... Anthony?"

He nodded. "That's all I've ever had since..."

Since it happened. Since he lost everything. Since he found the violin.

I nodded back. I didn't know what to say. We could work from this. A name was more than nothing. If we could guess his age or get it determined by a doctor, we could perhaps...

Suddenly there came voices from the hallway. Me and Tony both looked at each other, his eyes calm, controlled, in command. As always.

"I'll just..." I handed him the plastic card back, quickly licking my lips as I heard the voices outside grow louder. "I'll handle it."

Tony didn't say anything as I walked out of my bedroom and aimed towards the kitchen where I found them. Dan and Kyle had finally returned, carrying heavy bags of what looked like fresh herbs, cheese and bread.

"Oh, fantastic, you're up!" Dan grinned my way when he saw me and sat his bags down on the kitchen counter. "The farmer's market was amazing! They had farm to table eggs and cheeses, even beef jerky made from this particular—"

"Don't make her fall asleep again," Kyle patted Dan's shoulder, giving me a sympathetic smile. "I had to practically drag him away from the sausage stand."

"So I like sausages, don't act like it's news."

"I'm not, you're just supposed to be biased."

"And last night wasn't proof that I am?"

When Kyle rolled his eyes, then glanced my way, he cleared his throat and nudged Dan. When he turned his head as well and gave me a look, I wondered if I was showing anything out of the ordinary. Like soullessness.

"You alright?" He asked, raising a little brow.

I quickly nodded, but in truth, I felt drained. "Yeah, I'm great. Just... hungry."

"Ah, well fear not," Dan said and turned to his groceries with a smirk. "We're gonna whip up a glorious breakfast! We bought enough to feed the fucking homeless, I swear."

The room suddenly grew eerily quiet. I saw both of them freeze up, their smiles turning into stone. Their eyes fell to something behind me, and before I even turned around, I knew.

He walked in, silently. He met Dan and Kyle's stunned faces. It was like the planet shifted. I tried to swallow but couldn't, feeling my heart race. Then...

"I could eat," Tony replied. Dan opened his mouth, but not a peep came out. Kyle stared dumbfounded.

- And that was how my two worlds collided.

• • •

Boom.