A/N: Another WIP dredged up from the archives to finish up. I couldn't resist adding this little ending. Enjoy! :)

As sure as night is dark and day is light
I keep you on my mind both day and night
And the happiness I've known proves that it's right
Because you're mine, I walk the line

It has been two months since the first dream came, and still nothing has changed. No matter how much sleep she gets, she is still tired when she wakes up. No matter how much effort she puts into work, whatever answers there are to be found in her tattoos remain elusive. She is exhausted: from work, from danger, from confusion, from life. She is exhausted by her dreams and her waking life, for each seems a woeful sham when she is immersed in the other.

She thought that, at some point, the dreams would fade away. She thought that with time they would disappear along with the rest of her memories. But instead, they have stubbornly clung on. She has tried to put them aside: she has trained herself not to think of them during the day, trained herself not to revisit the details at night before bed.

She has trained herself in trying to feel something for someone else—anyone else.

She has gone out to bars with Tasha and Patterson scouting; she has talked to Borden about attempting to start dating. Everyone has been kind and helpful (Tasha, a bit too helpful), and yet there is always that silent undercurrent from everyone she's talked to, that questioning glance that says, Why are you bothering to go looking?

No one ever spoke to Kurt about it, as far as she could tell, but she knew he'd eventually hear about it. And he does. He keeps his distance for a couple weeks, which she thinks is kind in theory, but really only makes her nervous in practice. She knows at some point he will come asking after her—and he does.

They go out to dinner on a Friday night, to a quiet Italian restaurant he promises will be very good. She wears a dress Patterson helped her pick out (ignoring the complaints from Tasha that it wasn't revealing enough), and she lets him pick her up at her apartment. They walk the fifteen minutes to the restaurant side by side, arms and hands sometimes brushing. He doesn't seem to notice—or if he does, he has a good poker face about it—but she notices. She feels his knuckles skim against hers and she tenses for the flash of heat she has grown accustomed to from her dreams. She holds her breath, waiting for the fire that burst inside her when other hands touched her to spark now at his touch, but it doesn't come. There's just that same easy, comfortable familiarity between them, nothing more.

The food, as promised, is delicious. It makes her rethink all her nights of Chinese take-out, and when she tells him this, he laughs aloud for only the second time she's ever heard. It is a nice sound, she thinks with a smile, laughing too, but even that observation seems to come from a third person. She tries to be present, tries to stay with him, but she can't stop her mind from wandering. If he isn't the one for her, like Borden and the team and even she has assumed, then who is? Patterson and Tasha are forever complaining about the difficulties of dating in the city, the trials of finding not only reliable but compatible partners… If Kurt isn't hers, who else does she have?

She knows it is stupid, to cling to the dreams that in reality are nothing more than fantasies, but she can't shake the feeling that they are persisting nightly for a reason. Could they be some sort of sign? She has not seen the dream-man's face—does not even know if he exists, or if he ever was real—but she has heard his voice. He has begun whispering to her recently, in her dreams. Long strings of words that she can only remember a fraction of when she wakes, but a fraction is enough.

I love you, he says to her. Don't go, he begs of her.

His hands tighten around her, and guilt pools in the depths of her stomach, overriding earlier desire. Please don't leave me. She is certain when he pleads with her that she is dreaming an actual memory, and not simply a repentant fantasy. There is something about his voice—the way it catches, the way it cracks—and she knows she could not have thought it up all on her own.

And then there's her name.

She is certain he calls her by it—by her true name—but just like his face, the detail eludes her. He says it a thousand times, but she can never remember. She snatches after it the second she wakes, but she's never quick enough. He, and who she was with him, slips away with the dawn, and she is left more alone than ever.

After they leave the restaurant, Kurt offers to walk her back home, and she turns him down as gently as she can manage. Her mind is so far gone from him, from this present they should be sharing together, that she knows it would be cruel to lead him on even a step more, even just for a walk home. She needs some time alone to get her head on straight, and she needs that time now, before anything else happens between them.

He looks disappointed at the rejection, and she feels a stab of guilt. It is stupid of her—mean of her—to push away this kind friend that has never had anything but her best interests at heart in favor of some mystery memory. But she knows it is stupider, meaner, to continue things with Kurt when she is so wholly distracted by someone else, be he real or imagined. She needs to figure this out first, and if she can come back to him after that, all the better. For now, she needs to think, and she needs to be alone to do it. Hoping it is some consolation, Jane pushes herself up onto her toes and kisses him on the cheek to say goodbye. Then she turns and heads home, feeling his eyes on her until she reaches the first corner.

It has been two months since she left him, and yet Oscar wakes still, in the middle of the night, flushed and disoriented from dreams of her. No one shares his bed anymore, no one shares his room, but he can't hide it from the others. They whisper about him, he knows. But then: they've always whispered about him. First in awe, then in pity, now in worry. When he first sees the heads bent together that Tuesday, and the wary looks, he assumes it's because of the dreams. Perhaps they have become so obvious that the others can read them on his face now. But then he catches a snippet of chatter, as he passes by two programmers who don't know he's behind them, and he knows now that their worry for him has nothing to do with dreams.

Mel is the one who comes, on Friday evening, to tell him.

He knows, by then, all the details. He knows the name of the restaurant and the time of the reservation and the dress she will wear. Is wearing now. He knows, he knows, he knows.

"It's just a date, Brenton," Mel reminds him again, the third time in two minutes, as if he has somehow forgotten. "Nothing more. And even if it is more…" For one of the few times in Melanie's life, she hesitates. He looks up at her—thanking her for holding her tongue, or challenging her to continue, neither quite knows. After a second, she looks down, and whispers the words she can't help but say. "Well, even if it is more, you guys talked about him before she went, didn't you? About Weller? About… what to expect?"

Though he doesn't want to, Oscar nods. That conversation about Weller was private—Mel has no right to know about it, no goddamn right—but its contents are old news at this point, he supposes. Let her know. Let everyone know. It won't matter by the end of the night, he's sure. The promises they made to each other—none of them have mattered since the day she decided to obliterate her memory.

"I'm going for a walk," he says abruptly, getting to his feet.

"Oscar—"

Mel is at his side in a second, her height nowhere near matching his, but her hand strong enough on his arm to make up for the difference. He meets her eyes, seeing the silent plea there, the familiar worry. For a second he wavers, thinking of staying, if only to assuage her. She doesn't deserve to worry this much, certainly not about him.

But when he thinks about staying here, even for a second more, he can't breathe. He can't sit here and watch his past and present and future crumble apart. He can't save any of it—of course he can't—but he can't sit and watch it disappear, either. He needs to keep moving. He'll die if he stays still any longer. He puts his hand on Mel's, which is curled around his arm. Though he doesn't try to pry her off, her grip tightens reflexively.

"I just can't be here right now," he says, forcing himself to meet her eyes despite the humiliation, because he knows she deserves the unflinching truth. "I can't be here with all of you, everyone staring at me, waiting for me to start weeping or screaming. I need to get some air, and I just—I need to be away from here. Okay?"

Mel holds his gaze for what feels like a very long while. His arm starts to go numb beneath her grasp, but he does not move to shake her off, and he does not look away. Let her see, he thinks. Let her know how much it hurts, and let her know, too, that he knows it's hopeless. There is no coming back into being once you've been erased from memory. There is no point in even trying. He is more than aware of that. He is reminded of it every damn day. All he wants, just for one night, is to escape.

"Okay," Mel sighs finally, letting go of his arm. She waves at the door, stepping aside so he can pass. "Get away from here, then. Go."

He does as he's told, wishing as he walks through the door and pulls it shut behind him that the command were a real banishment. He wishes he could walk out into the night and disappear, and forget about all this. He wishes he had the freedom she does, to simply not remember. But he knows, even if that freedom were offered, he could never take it. No matter what peace it might give him, he could never abandon his memories of her. He isn't strong enough for that.

Jane doesn't stop walking when she gets home. She pauses for a moment beside the door, out of habit, but quickly moves forward again without looking back. She needs to think, and she knows she won't be able to do it in there, not in that place where the dreams burrowed themselves into her brain and body and fueled her loneliness. No, she needs to go somewhere else. Somewhere public and neutral, where she can sit and lay out the facts for herself and make a decision. She can't keep living like this, swinging between two different worlds.

She knows the only way forward is to let go of the past entirely and commit herself to the future, but how can she do that? How can she dismiss decades from her life as if they were nothing?

With drugs, her mind tells her, and the thought makes her shiver. For the thousandth time, she wonders what kind of person she was before, to allow herself to act so cruelly to her own psyche. She wonders what kind of person she was, to think the only way forward was to abandon everything that came before.

The answer, of course, is that she wasn't a good person. Or at least, she wasn't a person that had experienced any good in her life.

But she has a hard time believing that. Every time she remembers those dreams, remembers the feel of that man's arms around her, his lips on her, his voice in her ear… How could it have been such a bad life, if she'd had him? How could she have been such a bad person, if someone had loved her so much?

But then again—where is he?

If he was ever even real, then where in the world is he now? If he'd loved her so much, why hasn't he tried to find her in the months since she disappeared?

Stopping at a corner, Jane brings a hand up to her eyes, pressing her fingers into her sockets as if to rub the contradictions out. It's no use. There's no answer to be found—not here, anyway. She's been walking for hours, trying to clear her head, and yet she's just as confused now as she was when she'd left Kurt outside that restaurant.

She watches the traffic speed by, realizing as she does so that she's actually near his home. She hadn't noticed how far she'd walked; now that she stops to look at the street signs, she realizes she's only a few blocks away from his apartment. She can't help but wonder what would happen if she went back to him. If she walked those few blocks that separated them and knocked on his door and… Then what? She can imagine it; Tasha has taunted her about it enough. She just can't decide if she actually wants it.

That hesitation is enough to turn her around. She has no business dragging Kurt down with her; what she needs now is to just go home, go to sleep, and forget about all of this for a night. It won't be that easy, though, not with the dreams hanging over her.

As if in answer to her fears, the next block she walks down has a liquor store. She doesn't even think twice: she steps inside, ignoring the blatant stare from the cashier, and makes her way towards the back of the store. She isn't sure if alcohol will silence the dreams for a night, but she has high hopes. She passes by the cases of beer and the stacks of wine without even looking; she knows she needs something stronger.

She reaches the bourbon aisle just in time to see that there's a man in her way. Usually she would wait patiently, standing off to the side until the other person completed their business. It won't take him more than a few seconds. But this has been a long night, an even longer couple of months, and he is standing between her and the one brand that she actually likes and she doesn't have the patience to be kind to strangers anymore. Strangers have never been kind to her.

"Excuse me," she mutters, more sour than polite, squeezing by him to reach for a handle. Her shoulder brushes against his, and all at once it's as if a bomb's gone off. The man jumps away from her, nearly crashing into the far side of the shelf in his rush to get away. She turns to stare at him, to demand what in the hell set him off—is he that sensitive to tattoos?—when she catches a glimpse of him.

It's just a flash, just the briefest look before he turns tail and hurries down one of the other aisles, throwing his hood up to cover his head, but it's enough—because she recognizes him.

She recognizes him, and when he bolts, she doesn't stop to think—she follows him. She tracks him through the maze of aisles to the front door, calling out after him, but he never turns back. He keeps his hood up and his head down and she knows instinctively that he's about to break into a run as soon as he clears the door—but then he's blocked.

The bell in the door tinkles, and suddenly there are six very loud college boys shoving their way through the door and there's no other exit. She watches him freeze, knowing immediately that the moment those boys are out of the way he'll be running. He'll be running and, she knows already, she won't be able to catch him. He's spent this long eluding her—there is no way she'll get this close again. He'll make sure of it.

She has one chance, one second, one shot.

So she says the first and only thing that comes to her mind.

"Please don't leave me like I left you."

Oscar doesn't speak. He can't speak. The group of college boys have moved past him, the door in clear, his escape route is mere steps away—and yet he can't move. He can feel her behind him, waiting, worrying, wishing. For what, he doesn't know anymore. He doesn't dare to know.

When she bumped into him earlier in the aisle, he bolted out of necessity. It was two in the morning, she was in an East Village liquor store, she was still wearing the dress from the date… He knew what that meant. He knew Weller had to be only a couple steps behind her and he would rather die than see the two of them together, not now, not tonight, not ever—

Please don't leave me like I left you.

Her words tumble through his head, cloying and confusing. He doesn't understand what she's talking about. How does she know she was the one who left? Moreover, why does she even care, now that she has Weller?

He should leave. He should walk out that door and grab the first cab and never look back. Mel had been right, earlier, when she'd tried to stop him from leaving. She's always had a nose for disaster; he should've trusted her. He doesn't know why he's here in the first place. He's been wandering all night, not drunk but wishing he was, and he thought he'd be safe here. She lived across the river—she would have no reason to come to Manhattan after their dinner in Brooklyn. But of course he'd miscalculated. Of course she and Weller would make a night of it. Of course it wouldn't just be dinner.

God, he wishes Mel were here to drag him out. He can't walk away from her. He's never been able to, not even when it's for his own sanity.

"How do you know it was you who left me?"

He asks it without turning around, though he can see part of her face in the reflection on the glass. He can't see Weller yet. He wonders why the man's hiding. Is he really that polite?

"I know because…" She hesitates, either unsure of what to say or too scared to speak. He bites down on his tongue so he won't hurry her up. A minute ago, he was ready to bolt out the door and now he can't even think of leaving. This is the closest he's been to her in months. He can't believe he's hearing her voice. He can't believe she's standing five feet away.

He can't believe this isn't another one of those torturous dreams.

"Will you please turn around?" she asks softly. She almost sounds like she's pleading. "I just—I'd like us to look at each other."

Don't, Melanie growls in his mind. Don't you dare, Brenton. Leave now and forget about all this. She has.

But has she? Obviously not, if she recognized him. Something must've gone wrong—with the drugs or with the procedure, something. Something he is suddenly, perversely, very grateful for. How many times has he prayed in vain for a second chance, for a do-over?

He'd always thought no one was listening.

She holds her breath as he turns around. She can't be certain, with the shadow cast from his too-big hood, but then he reaches up and lowers it and she knows. She knows. There's something about that face, those eyes. She'd recognize him anywhere. If she'd seen a picture of him in the last few months, if she'd crossed paths with him on the street… She would've known then as immediately as she knows now.

"It's you."

She steps towards him as if drawn by a magnet. She does not think, does not hesitate, only moves towards what is drawing her in. He does not move away.

When she's close enough, she reached out for his right arm. He jumps at the touch, but settles when she meets his eye. She holds his gaze to fortify them both as she blindly pushes his sleeve up. She's almost too scared to look down.

But there it is: just like she'd dreamed, just like she'd confessed to Borden, just like she'd sketched out a thousand times—the tattoo of a tall tree with deep routes, inked forever on his forearm.

She licks her lips, tries to find the words. "I've been... I'm..." She swallows hard. Think, she coaches herself. Speak. But she has no idea what to say. She looks up and stares at his face, and he stares back, the two of them frozen into silence by what shouldn't be and yet somehow is.

For all the time she has spent thinking about the dreams, trying to ascertain where they've come from and why, she has never stopped to contemplate what she will do should they come true. She has thought about the man in them; she has searched for his picture on the news and in magazines and throughout FBI databases; she has wondered after his name as she read novels and reports and listened to the radio. But she has never thought about what she would do should he ever happen to stumble back into her life.

She looks into his eyes and she can't help but wonder if he's been dreaming like she's been dreaming. She wonders if they have met together in the dark world of sleep, wonders if their dreams have joined. She remembers his whispers, from her dreams. She wonders if that had been him, calling her back, calling her home.

He's the first to break the silence.

"It's… It's Jane, now, right?"

She nods quickly. "Yes. And you're—"

She breaks off, missing the forgotten name. He lets her try, lets her search his face and will the memory to the surface. It doesn't come.

"I don't know your name," she confesses finally.

"Oscar," he supplies. He smiles a little at the dubious look on her face. "Not what you expected?" he guesses.

She shakes her head. "None of this is what I expected," she whispers. But she says it with wonder.

"Maybe… Maybe we could talk it through, then? Figure out our expectations?" There's no mistaking the hope in his voice, and she can't help but feel it too. This is the best she's felt since she crawled out of that bag.

"I think that's a good idea," she tells him.

"Good." He smiles briefly, and she's too distracted by how much it softens his face that she misses what he says next.

"Sorry?"

"I said—maybe we could talk it out over some food?"

"Food?" Jane frowns, glancing at the clock above the register. "It's two in the morning."

He smiles again, and she catches a mischievous tilt to it this time. "Never too early for breakfast. C'mon, there's a diner still open across the street." He points towards a neon 24 Hours sign blaring bright red into the dark night. "I'm sure they make good strawberry pancakes." He catches her eye, suddenly hesitant. "Well—only if you still like them, that is."

She can't help but smile. "I do," she assures him. "I really do."

A/N: Thanks so, so much for reading! I hoped you liked this little happy ending. Feel free to leave your thoughts in a review! :)