This was how he spent every night. After his weekly physical therapy he would go and just sit with her and talk to her. It's how he spent his mornings and afternoons and practically every moment he was physically able to be by her side. Reading the newspaper to her, and brushing the hair off her forehead, updating her on any and every subject that would keep him communicating with her. Co- workers would visit and relieve him for an hour or two to eat or sleep or go to the bathroom.

Three weeks came and went and he was still glued to her side. He had finally been released from the hospital, but he might as well have changed his home address to "Room 166" of that hospital. He hated being home. If he could even call it that-"home." She wasn't there, and it was empty and quiet and still. The photos on the wall that once reminded them both of good times, and induced laughter, were now along the lines of a shrine to the woman who still hadn't woken up. Walking down the halls of that place feeling more a stranger there than ever before, floating around like a ghost from room to room. Slowly the apartment started to be more and more bare, stripped clean of the picture frames leaving behind faded wallpaper stained walls. Slowly but surely their home grew empty, as her hospital room grew fuller.

He could never in a million years part with those precious captured moments. The photo of her at the fair with powdered sugar in her hair and outrageous laughter falling from her lips. Or the one of them on the ski lift, one of the first "selfies" they had taken. Still he could hear her laugh as she had to explain to him what that word meant. Those moments trapped in time were ones he would treasure forever. Placing them around her bed, and along the walls of the room, hating the fact this was slowly becoming the place he hung his hat at night.
As he flipped the newspaper open he felt a tear tug at his eye, at the sight of an advertisement for the movie they had seen exactly seventeen weeks ago. 123 days. 123 days without hearing her voice. 123 days without her soft touch on his hand. 123 days. As his hand rose to wipe away the tear he hadn't put nearly enough effort into fighting, he heard a strange beep. He knew every sound that every machine hooked up to her made. He knew the pumping sound of the ventilator mimicking human breaths, and the slow steady beep of the heart monitor as it broadcast each one of her precious heartbeats. But this noise, this wasn't one of any of the noises he had come to pay close attention to. This was a murmured breath, off beat with the machine. This was the sound of someone struggling and gasping. His eyes were so glued to the machinery that he didn't meet her eyes until he felt a tug at his hand.

"NURSE!" Holding her hand tightly as her eyes widened and flicked across the room in a panic. The nurse rushed to the side of the bed and began to study her.

"She's waking up," she turned her tone from Robin to the woman squirming in the bed. Raising her voice she called loudly to reach her through her panic.

"I'm going to pull the tube out, okay? Can you cough for me?" Coughing as if her life depended on it as the woman pulled the tube out of her throat. Blinking aggressively as the nurse exited the room to go get the doctor.

"Regina." Breathlessly, he says her name and leans in, holding her tighter than he has ever held onto anything before. Only at the feeling of her arms stiff by her side and the sound of her humming under him did he break the embrace. Looking into her eyes, he saw something different. A glint of her sparkle was missing, and she looked at him like she didn't even-

Oh. Oh god no. Please God no.

"I'm sorry," she starts,

Don't say it. Please don't say what you're about to say.

"But, do I know you?" His finger tips felt cold, and he could tell all the blood was rushing towards his heart in all efforts to protect it from the words that seemed to stab him right there.

"Regina, it's me. Robin." Praying it would take something as simple as his name to make her remember, but her eyebrows scrunched in confusion.

"I'm… I'm sorry but, I don't know you." Just as Robin swore his heart was about to explode the doctor came in, and checked her over. Flashing the light between both eyes, checking every monitor, every item on the chart, answering every question.
"What happened?" Speaking slowly almost as if if she managed to speak politely enough everyone would just leave her alone.

"You were in an accident. You were part of a hit and run." Tears welled up in her troubled eyes as she started to speak again,

Her eyes nervously glancing to Robin every now and then. When she finally asked the Doctor,

"I don't…I… I don't remember…"
"Well, we're going to run some tests but, according to eye witness testimony, as well as your

injuries, your head was hit quite hard off of the curb of the sidewalk. You may suffer some short term retrograde amnesia." Blinking at him, not quite understanding the meaning of the words he was saying, but understanding that the words were not good by any means. Tears spilled over the edges of her eyes, and robin reached out on instinct and grasped her hand, his heart splitting in two as she flinched at the contact of their skin.

"Temporary… So, this could wear off?" Speaking for Regina, who could't even understand the situation enough to ask questions about it.
"Yes, patients have been known to recover almost fully, regain memories back slowly over time." Seeing the both of them shift uncomfortably, settling into the hopelessness this situation seemed to induce in them, the doctor added,

"There are some tricks to get the brain to remember…"

Not missing a beat, Robin stood,
"Whatever they are. We'll try them. We'll try them all."