Disclaimer: I don't own MBC nor the characters, except for the OC's. Rated T for strong language and mature themes.

Just to give you a corona-update, since I mentioned it in the last chapter, which I wrote quite a long time ago - I am so sorry to keep you waiting. My test came out negative and I was able to go out after a month of being quarantined.

The vibe of the chapter: Fade Out Lines by The Avener - Did we build all those bridges to watch them thin down to dust?

"SAMANTHA LANG!" Started to echo through the hallways.

Sam and Chris turned their heads to see, who was so furious with Sam. They saw Cathy walking angrily at a fast pace towards them. She was obviously enraged. Apart from that, the spouses saw tears coming down her cheeks.

Sam turned to Chris and asked quietly: "Did you tell her?" He shook his head.

"Danny did!" Cathy yelled at her.

Sam was thinking about how to make the situation better and all that got on her mind was to apologize. "I am sorry, Cathy."

The blonde narrowed her eyes. "So you're sorry, huh? You just got what you wanted - again." Cathy's voice started to be shaky, so she stopped to take a deep breath. "No, you are not sorry! But you will be. This was the last straw that broke my back."

"The last straw? What else did I do? And don't forget that you broke up with Danny, he wasn't unfaithful to you with me."

"That is rich coming from you, whom everyone hates. Not even your husband likes you!"

Sam frowned at that statement while she was trying to figure out why she said that.

Chris felt like defending himself. "I didn't say that."

"Maybe you didn't, but you are not saying it's not true either. Sorry to spill your secret in front of your better half though." Cathy said sarcastically.

"Why do you have to be so bitter? And how is our marriage your business?" Asked Sam.

"It wasn't - not until you've slept with someone I love, with someone you knew I still love, with the father of my baby - which knew the one who alle-ged-ly loves you about. And you still think that you are the reasonable one, the one who has everything under control. Guess what? Everything is crumbling around you, you two clearly have some relationship issues, your cheer team hates you and even I... hate you. I am disgusted by the thought of being friends with you. So that lefts you only with Danny - make the most of it until he impregnates you and then fucks someone else."

Cathy herself was surprised by how angry she was. Feeling such wrath was a completely new sensation to her. To prevent bursting in tears in front of them again, she turned around and headed to the door.

Sam was shocked, completely speechless. After a minute she finally spoke up slowly. "You knew about her pregnancy and didn't tell me about it?"

Her husband felt the need to stand up for himself: "She didn't want me to tell you! I just didn't want to break the promise."

"And what about the promise you gave me? Isn't that one more important?"

Chris didn't say a thing. That situation didn't seem to get to him at all. He wasn't even sure which promise she had on her mind.

"Do you realize how serious it is? If you had told me, we could have prevented it! Now she is pregnant, angry and lonely, Danny is a cheater, I am a slut and you are... careless towards your best friends and your wife... I know that it is caused by those motherfuckers who are messing with your head, but you clearly had expressed some doubts with Cathy even before this horror started! The worst part about it is that it doesn't even bother you. And that hurts."

"I am confused. It is way worse to have blurry vision than to know everything, as you do."

"Oh yeah? I would rather forget all the memories we have together than to live just with them and to know that the person I've loved my whole life doesn't exist anymore."

The brunette couldn't handle looking at her husband anymore. She knew every spot on his body, every freckle on his face, his deepest thoughts, and fears, and yet... she did not recognize that person standing in front of her. Thus she turned around... and went away. He did not try to stop her, nor calling her. Maybe he forgot her name...

Without realizing it at first, she ended up back in the gymnasium. It looked so different without all the people, that jerk of a coach, and after knowing what she wasn't aware of a few minutes ago. Ignorance is bliss. The lighting seemed different, the air smelled different, even Danny, who was sitting on a bench looked different.

He gasped as he saw her entering the room. "I've been waiting for you and you actually came..."

"You've been waiting for me?" She repeated his statement angrily.

"I just knew you'd come. I told Cathy the truth so that nothing stops us from finally being together!" Danny said enthusiastically.

"I hope that this is just another nightmare! Why me? Why do I have to be the enlightened one!"

Her reaction shocked him, he had no idea why she wasn't as happy as him. "You don't... you don't love me anymore?" He said on the verge of crying.

Sam was the one who needed to be comforted at that moment, but seeing Danny sob was another thing that she did not need. "I do, but in a different way. Cathy loves you. Truly. And even though it doesn't seem like that to you, you love her, not me."

"But... but that doesn't make any sense. I know that... I can't live without you." He tottered.

Sam knew what they had been through the last 11 years they had known each other. "Although that may be true... you need me to encourage you, support you, keep your feet on the ground, and to get you out of trouble. You can live next to me as my best friend, and not with me as my husband does."

"Being just friends with you is breaking my heart."

"So you know what it feels like - then go and find Cathy to heal her heart and I promise you that once it is done, yours will be just fine as well."

Danny was acting as if he was under her spell, not listening to anything she said. "I prefer to stay here with you, you need me now."

She felt a drop of tear going down her cheek. "I do. I need someone to comfort me, but Cathy needs it more. She is pregnant with your baby."

His jaw dropped. "What? I don't even remember having sex with her... Apart from that, I am not ready to be a father!"

Sam didn't even try to hide her tears at that point. "Was I ready to lose my mom forever when I was 8? Was I ready to deal with my mean father as a teenager? Do you think that I was ready to get married at 18 and... that I am ready to lose my husband now? That is life. The only thing we can do about the hardships is to get through them somehow and hope to be a better, stronger person after surviving them."

Danny was looking at her dreamily despite her being at her weakest. "I admire your strength and promise to take care of you. You'll never be sad again. I would go through it myself to spare you if I could."

She opted for using different tactics, as this wasn't getting them anywhere. "I won't love you unless you make up with Cathy. She is my friend and I want her to be happy. Find her and transfer all the love you have for me to her. If you really love me, do it. That is all I am asking of you."

The scarred boy was thinking it over. "So after I do that, you will love me back?"

"Yes. I promise you that." The brunette gulped while hoping that it will work.

Danny smiled at her. "I shouldn't waste any more time then. The quicker I manage to do it, the quicker you are mine!" He got up rapidly from the bench and ran out of the gymnasium, clueless about where Cathy could have been at the moment.

Home

Sam was wandering around the living room in circles trying hard to figure stuff out, but her physical condition made it almost impossible. Her ankle was aching, she was exhausted, had a strong sleep deficiency which she couldn't deal with without the risk of hurting someone she loved. The poor girl was even scared to sit down as she could have fallen asleep like that. Her husband was nowhere to be seen and Sam did not want to call him to find out.

Does this situation have a solution? The lack of sleep is preventing me from thinking straight and I am the only one of us who can think straight at this point. My head hurts so much that it hurts to use it. It is like a hexed circle. Same for the condition of the three. But what could change it all? How to turn it the other way around?

She sat down on the sofa and looked at the clock on the wall, yet failed to read it, as she was too tired to do so. She grabbed a pen that was lying on the coffee table in front of her to distract herself. She played with it for a while by clicking the tip of it over and over again.

If I had known what the time is, I would have been able to say how many hours of this night left.

...

She set her sight on the pen again and she realized, that she picked up the pen from the papers that were lying on the table. She picked them up and found out those were... divorce papers. Her heart almost stopped. And it almost stopped once again when she saw her brother in law, John, sitting next to her silently.

She gasped. "How long have you been sitting here?"

He was staring at her intensely. "Look at the clock."

The answer seemed a tad off to her, but she did what he told her. She still couldn't manage to read the time.

"What time is it? I can't read it."

He looked her in the eye. "Neither can I - I am too tired to do that. You are holding a pen and the divorce papers that Chris brought, shouldn't you sign them?"

She threw them back on the table. "Did he tell you about it?"

"We are brothers, of course, he told me. You have always been like my sister, so I came to say goodbye."

Sam didn't want to let that happen under no circumstances. Ever. She laid her right hand on the table and raised her left hand with the opened pen in it. "Over. My. Dead. Body."

She impaled her hand with the pen with all the force she had. The sharp pain caused her to scream.

"Oh my God! Why have I done it?" She inspected the injury closer. The pen was going right through her palm and the blood was dripping everywhere.

He was as surprised as she was. "You said that you will sign the papers over your dead body... that is what they want, isn't it?" John said without a sense of emotion.

Fuck this hurts like a bitch! John would have never said such a thing to me. But I would...

That got her thinking. "What time is it? Why can't you read the clock for me?"

"I am too tired to do that."

"You have already said that exact sentence! And on top of that, it is false. You are not too tired to read it, I am."

He frowned at her. "Are you sure?"

Then she got an idea. "I am not, but I will be. What do I have in the locked drawer of my writing table?"

"Nothing. You used to have a letter you wrote for your father in there, but you decided to end that chapter of your life by burning it."

She was impressed yet decided to continue. "What is my favorite memory involving my mom?"

"You used to assist her when she was baking. Despite your low age, she gave you life advice every time you were helping her in the kitchen. Almost as if she knew that there was not much time left..."

"How did she die, exactly?" Sam asked with a shaking voice.

"I have no idea and neither do you."

Sam's face brightened up despite all the physical and mental pain she was in. "Exactly! You know the things that no one else apart from me knows, because you know what I know, that is why you can't tell the time! You are in my head! This is just a dream!"

"Are you sure?" He said again, reached for her impaled hand, took her by the arm, and started shaking her.

"Stop it! You are just in my head!" She screamed at the top of her lungs.

He yelled back at her. "I am not, I am here, trying to wake you up!"

...

"I am real! Sam, please, it was just another dream!"

"What time is it?" She asked again.

"It is half-past nine."

The fact that he finally answered struck her by surprise. "So you can read the clock?"

John was visibly confused by that question. "Of course I can. What happened in that dream? You have a bleeding hole right in the middle of your palm, that must have hurt!"

She hugged him. "You are back to your old self, that means I am awake! What a relief." She took a few deep breaths and then froze.

"What is on that paper which is lying on the table... under the pen?" She asked sweating nervously.

John took it in his hands and quickly went through it. "It looks like a note from Chris written in the binary code."

She took a look at it herself and all she saw were zeros and ones. She was scared to ask John what stands there but did it anyway nevertheless.

"It is kind of strange. He says that he needs to go back to the roots. And that he will go where his heart will take him without thinking about it. Do you have a clue what he is talking about?"

"I think I do. But first, take me to the hospital, please. That hand really hurts. And maybe I should get my ankle checked as well."

"I can't drive you there, I don't have a driving license yet."

"Take me there by the MBV."

"But... this is not an alien emergency matter."

"I've just had another impactful nightmare caused by harmful aliens and Chris is outside in the dead of the night. He is like a wandering target, this IS an emergency!"

John nodded. After thinking it through, there was no time to waste. His brother could have been in danger as they were talking. He helped her with standing up. Her whole body was shaking and two of her limbs were injured.

Later in the vehicle

"Do you think I am crazy?" Sam wanted him to reassure her that she hadn't lost her mind. Yet.

"No, your theory makes perfect sense to me. Only people that are in your proximity as you sleep are present in the dream. And you probably discovered the way of finding out whether it is all just a dream or reality. Perhaps even how to influence the outcome of the dream."

"Can you imagine what would be if I had signed those papers in that dream?"

"I don't want to imagine that. Be very careful about what you do."

She peeked at her palm wrapped in a bandage. "I am glad that I've done it."

"There has to be a safer way of breaking the algorithm. Maybe your mental state has to do something with it. The worse you feel, the worse the dream."

"Granted... Stop here." Sam instructed politely.

"Is that person sitting under the tree him?"

"Abso-fucking-lutely." She uttered and got out of the vehicle.

He laughed at that expression she just used. "Shouldn't I go with you to keep you safe?"

She looked back over her shoulder. "I appreciate your help, but this is our battle. And if I don't succeed now, then I will never." She then continued walking confidently and didn't turn back, not even once.

Chris was sitting on the grass with a neutral expression in his face., legs bent in knees, elbows laid on them. His expression didn't change a bit when he saw her. She knew that she couldn't let it affect her, for she had to remain hopeful in order to save him.

"Why here?" She asked him at the very moment she came close to him.

"I don't know. I just went out and suddenly ended up here." He said reluctantly.

"This is the tree we got married under. Well, not actually, we got married at the courthouse, but when we were kids."

"I don't remember that."

"But your heart does. It is not a coincidence that you came here. Isn't that a solid proof of us two having a strong connection and a long history?"

He finally turned his head to look at her. "So this tree is important for our relationship?"

She nodded. "I think that I know how to get you out of that confusion and amnesia, hubby."

That was a lot of drama and interactions! I hope that you didn't stop reading this story due to all the negativity. As Sam said, that is life - it has all the emotions in it. That being said, I send you nothing but positive vibes!

What do you think Sam has on her mind regarding Chris's loss of memory? And what about Danny and Cathy, will they manage to fix their relationship if Danny loves someone else? I would be grateful to read your reviews or PMs, as I always am.

Groove