He'd eaten me alive, Darkling. Devoured me whole. Yet I was still here. I studied the slowly staining sheet blankly. How could that be? I dropped to my knees. I'd killed and been killed. I'd been the pale shadow of a monster and then a vibrantly gleeful, self-aware one. I had been swallowed and my soul dissolved. But I was still here. And I realized…

I wasn't at all sure I wanted to be.

The strength I'd had before melted away. I couldn't walk. I couldn't even stand. But I could crawl, and I did. I moved reluctant hands, pushed with my knees, and did anything I could to put distance between the others and myself. Now that it was over, I didn't trust myself to even be in the same room with them. I put my head down and ignored the sound of voices calling my name. I ignored it and tried to move faster.

"Cal." Niko's voice, calm and soothing, tried to seep through the cotton wool that wrapped my brain. I wouldn't let it. I pushed one hand, one knee, farther. I'd get away. I had to. The hand on my shoulder had me jerking to one side, trying to escape its touch.

"Stay away," I said with numb desperation. "Get away from me."

Goodfellow's sharp intake of breath passed by me, leaving me untouched. He didn't understand, not really, but Niko did. He always knew, always saw through me as if I were a pane of glass. But I should've known he wouldn't listen. Blocking my path, he dropped urgently on the floor in front of me and wrapped his arms around me. Hard enough to be painful. Hard enough that I couldn't doubt or ignore the fact that he was there. And, not coincidentally, hard enough to restrain me. One hand cupping the back of my neck, he said without a shred of doubt, "You won't hurt us, little brother. You don't have to run." Relentlessly, he held on. "We won't let you run. Not when we've just gotten you back."

I shook my head. How could he believe that? How could he believe I might not hurt them, might not try to kill them again? How could he believe that when I couldn't? The words had been only in my head, but Niko heard them nonetheless. "It wasn't you," he said vehemently. "It was not you. It was never you. The bastard is gone, Cal. The thing that did this to you is gone. Let him go."

He was gone. Yeah, I bought that. The trouble was I thought he might have taken the best parts of me with him. I pushed against Niko, trying futilely to break his grip. Finally I gave up; he was stronger than I was at the moment. There was no escape. I didn't say anything; the words simply weren't there. Hell, I don't even think there were words for what I was feeling. But there were words for one thing… one thing that I had to know. "My eyes." I swallowed. "My eyes… gray?"

Niko faltered for a second, then strengthened his hold. "Yes, Cal, your eyes are gray." He tightened his lips, then turned to Rafferty and demanded, "Do it." The healer had already moved to our side. Eyes troubled, he let his hand hover over my head as he hesitated. Niko apparently wasn't in a patient mood. His voice harshened instantly. "He can't remember. He cannot. Now do it, goddamn it."

The healing hand settled on my hair and I heard a soft voice beside my ear. "I can't make you forget, Cal. The memories are horrible, I know, but they're your memories. And you may need them someday. I can't make them disappear." Then more firmly, "But I can make them fade." The words shifted from my ear to a dark and still spot inside my head and became but one word. It was silent yet heard nonetheless. "Fade."

We both faded, the memories and myself. Faded like an ancient sepia portrait. And then just like Darkling, we faded until we were no more.

Chapter Twenty-three

I didn't want to wake up.

Yeah, I know. That's not exactly a news flash when it comes to yours truly. But this was different. It wasn't rolling over and burrowing under the blankets because it was too cold to put your nose outside the covers. And it wasn't the entire-body hangover that kept you mattress bound because you worked too many late shifts. Last, but certainly not least, it wasn't the abject laziness that came from the love, the sheer adoration, of sleep. As much as I wished it were, it wasn't any of those things. The reason I had now wasn't nearly as easy to admit to.

I didn't want to wake up because then it would be true. Concrete and inescapable. I would have to come face-to-face with the fact it hadn't been a dream. I would have to accept that the past days hadn't been a nightmare, that they had been real life. And that good old real life had made me the nightmare.

Who the hell would want to wake up to that?

As in most things lately, I had no choice. The distinctive odor of dog breath puffing into my face dragged me to a place I didn't want to go: consciousness. Giving in to the inevitable, I gagged and waved a hand weakly in front of my nose. "I know you can lick your own balls, Catch. You don't have to prove it to me."

A wide grin of immaculate ivory teeth paired with a happily lolling pink tongue greeted my bleary vision. A healthy bushel of air was blown out light brown nostrils, spraying icy cold droplets directly in my face. "Gah." I rolled over and moved to a sitting position on the bed. "I'm up. I'm up. Jesus, cut it out, would ya?" A huge paw nearly the size of a small soup bowl plopped on my leg, the claws scoring my skin lightly even through the cloth of the scrub pants. "All right. All right. You win." I stood hastily and Catcher promptly took my place, curling nose to tail. Smug yellow eyes laughed at me before closing for a nice nap.

With one hand on the waistband holding my pants up and the other combing through what felt like the nest of the last dodo, I took a look around. No wonder the wolf was so insistent. This was his room. I recognized it from a long-ago visit. Apparently I'd graduated from the surgery, or maybe they just thought I might not want to wake up there. They were right. No amount of bleaching and scrubbing would clean the floor or my mind of what had lain there.

"Sleeping Beauty awakes. Did your furry prince there give you a kiss? No tongue, I hope."

Goodfellow stood in the doorway, looking disgruntled yet pleased at the same time. The reason for his annoyance was immediately clear. Dressed in some very old castoffs, he was wearing worn jeans and a sweatshirt that had once been a bright, bright blue. Now it was a bright bleach-spotted blue. It had the logo of a long-gone amusement park on it complete with roller coaster and happy, waving cartoon figures that had made me cringe even in my younger days.

"Looking good, Papa Smurf." I gave a not entirely genuine yawn, almost desperately relieved at the distraction.

"Aren't you the humorous one?" He scowled. He couldn't hold the grimace long, though. It transmuted to a smile not often seen on Robin's lips, I was sure. There was no mockery, no sly superiority, no "Hey, sailor, you in town long?" There was only deep pleasure and an honest relief. "You look well yourself, Cal. You seem well."

"Yeah?" I looked down at my feet, toes a bit blue themselves against the cold wood floor. Seemed well. It was a big step… a huge step… from seeming well to actually being well. But even seeming well was a step in itself, and any step forward at this point could only be a good thing.

I remembered it all. From the point of Darkling's merging with me up to Rafferty's making fresh, raw, and unbearable memories seem like old ones. Everything I had done, everything I had attempted to do, it was all still there… only slightly removed. That had kept me in my right mind and kept me alive. I might not be well, but I was sane, and damn… as far as I was concerned that was a full-fledged miracle. "I think I am okay." My lips twitched lightly before I amended, "More or less." For now anyway. "Where's Nik?"