Anamnesis (an-am-nee-sis)

1. the recollection or remembrance of the past

2. the medical history of a patient

3. a prompt immune response to a previously encountered antigen.

Chapter 1

For Mike, waking up in a hospital wasn't unusual. He'd been in and out of them for most of his life, starting with the day his parents died. Grammy was getting older, getting sicker. She was in the white sterility once a month. Trevor got into some serious shit too, so sometimes Mike had to take him up there, making some wild lie of an excuse so they wouldn't question them further about the busted fingers and cuts that came with being stupid. Mike figured the nurses knew the truth anyway. Nurses knew everything.

This hospital visit was different though, because Mike had never been the one in the bed. He'd never been the one with the wires stuck to his chest and on his finger and with a needle in his arm. He'd never been the one with his chest aching and broad bandages holding him together, wearing only a pair of old sweat pants under the half rolled down blanket. He'd never been the one stupid enough to get hurt.

"Ah. The genius awakens," a male voice spoke. A man in a finely dressed suit, tailored to fit, bright lavender tie with blue dots, and a white business shirt had walked into the room. Starch, Mike thought. Handsome, he added.

"Wish I hadn't," Mike heard himself say and was a bit curious why he hadn't started with 'Everything hurts. Put me out of my misery or give me the good drugs.' He'd had better pain meds using just Trevor's stock of pot.

The man laughed shortly. "I bet."

"Since you agree does this mean I can get some good drugs now? Or are you in too much of a hurry – that suit's too nice for a hospital."

"It is, isn't it. You'll pay for making it smell like disinfectant later, don't worry. And don't go getting any ideas of playing the doctor so you can get out of here – you know law, not medicine." The man took a step toward the door. "Now, I'm gonna go find a nurse about those drugs; the sooner you're clear the sooner we can get back to court."

Get to court? Mike winced and held his head for a moment. Then he dropped it quickly back to the bed and looked up at the man with a slight bit of worry and realization.

"Shit," he said in a breath.

"What? You alright?" the man asked, looking scary and serious.

"Look," Mike started. "I just needed some extra cash."

"What?"

"What?" Mike stopped, staring up at the chocolate eyed man and hoping he'd guessed wrong.

"Mike, what are you talking about?" the man asked, stepping closer but somehow looking less intimidating. He at least seemed to be genuinely confused.

"This... isn't about me taking Greg's test for him?" Mike asked, recalling the last person he'd cheated the LSATs for.

The man frowned, that scary look back to his features as he thought. "Are you talking about the LSATs?" he asked finally.

"Not if you aren't," Mike replied quickly, shaking his head, eyes slightly widened. Shit. He'd backed himself into a corner, hadn't he? He'd dug his own grave. He had effectively just turned himself in to this strangely mellow but still scary detective or cop or lawyer or whoever.

The man's eyebrows came together, making his frown deeper and causing Mike's heart to speed. This man was going to tear him to pieces. Mike was doomed. There would be no escape. If looks could kill, Mike would be ashes by now. The pounding of his heart made him dizzy, but he just swallowed and kept eye contact.

"What's your name?" the man asked slowly.

"Michael James Ross. Can I get those meds now?" Mike answered.

"In a minute. Mike. What's today's date?" the man asked, not so slow this time.

Mike hated this basic questions bit, but he supposed it must be some kind of protocol to hospital ridden suspects. Maybe they thought he had a concussion. Hell, maybe he did.

"Last I checked, it was the twelfth of March, but I don't know when I got in here. Oh, and it's 2008, since that's probably going to be your next question," Mike answered and then winced. He probably shouldn't pull sass on a guy who was almost definitely going to end his happy, if pathetic, existence.

Mike followed with wary eyes as the man walked over to the table in the room. The two of them kept eye contact the whole time. Mike tried to look unafraid, but the man was intimidating, even with his mouth parted like it was, like he wanted to say something but had no idea where to start. The suit man picked up a newspaper from the table and gently tossed it onto Mike's stomach. It didn't hurt, so Mike assumed it was just his ribs that were bruised. He hoped it was just bruising, at least. He'd seen Trevor with a broken rib, and that was not fun.

"What?" Mike asked, reaching with his free hand to grab the paper.

"Check the date, smart guy."

Mike rolled his eyes, even if the motion made him queasy, and then looked at the print. "March thirteenth. Okay, so I've been unconscious. You can't hold that against me. Year 20... What?" All the breath left Mike at once.

"2012," the man in the suit finished for him, stepping closer to the bed. "Mike," he started, voice gentler, hand on the bed rail. When Mike ripped his eyes from the paper and threw a terrified look at him, the man frowned and sighed at the same time. "Do you know who I am?"

"I'm guessing...," Mike began, finding it a little harder to breathe than before. "I'm guessing the right answer is yes, but uh... Oh my God, what... what happened to me? Is this some kind of demented joke?"

The newsprint was tearing under his fingers, and Mike was eighty percent sure he was shaking. Make that ninety. The man in the suit forced him to release the paper, but he didn't move to put it back where it came from. Instead, the man touched Mike's shoulder tentatively, like the motion was unfamiliar, and made sure Mike was looking at him.

"Mike, calm down," he ordered, and Mike knew he should listen. He should obey this man, but his chest ached and his hip felt bruised and- and... "Breathe, Mike. You need to - Are you alright?"

Mike winced and put his hand to his head. Then he flinched, thinking someone was trying to hit him, but he couldn't remember where that idea would come from. Suddenly the wheels of a cart down the hall sounded like a freight train. "My head-," Mike whined, closing his eyes. "It hurts."

"Alright. Deep breaths. I'm calling the nurse," the man said, pressing the button on the bedrail.

"Ahhh," Mike huffed out. He tried to roll into the pillow, but his injured body hurt too much to obey. "Jesus Christ. Je-Jesus... Oh, it hurts."

"Yes, Mr. Specter? You-," a woman's voice started.

"Get someone in here now," Mr. Specter ordered, loud and angry.

"I'll be right there," the woman's voice spoke and then vanished. Mike didn't mind. Her voice was too high pitched despite being actually kind of low. Her footsteps were too loud. Handsome Starch hovered there, breathing too quickly, too loudly, too repetitively.

"God, dude. Will you stop breathing?" Mike begged, free hand reaching out to smack at the man's arm. He caught the edge of a sleeve and then someone grabbed his hand.

"Will you stop being an idiot and calm down?" the man growled.

Mike ripped his hand out of the other man's grip. "My head," Mike repeated. "My head. God, everything hurts. It-... My head."

He heard the nurse coming back, recognized her footsteps, but he was gone, temporarily freed from pain, before she even got close.

Where was he? What time was it? What happened? His whole body hurt, but mostly his head. He also felt heavy, and the spinning in his brain made him groan. That's when a familiar voice spoke up.

"Is he going to be alright?" It was the lavender tie guy. What was his name? Mr. Specter?

Specter. Like a ghost? An apparition. A supernatural force. Something or someone not to be trifled with. Someone whose name you can use when people won't take you seriously. And make you wish that your biggest problem was keeping this job that you seem to hate so much.

What?

"The medicine is probably wearing off. He's due for another dose in about an hour. I'm sure he's fine," the nurse said. Luckily, her voice didn't sound nearly as falsetto as the last nurse.

Mike groaned again anyway, because she was still loud, and shifted to try and find some kind of comfort from the stitch in his side. Unfortunately, it was impossible with how much pain he was in. He was so heavy and tired that he didn't even open his eyes. Instead, he took slow, deep breaths and hoped it would all pass: the nausea, the pain, the bad joke, all of it. It helped a little bit, and he relaxed some.

"He'll probably wake up in a few minutes," the nurse said. Did they really think Mike was sleeping? He was in too much pain to- Okay, never mind. He was going to keep his mouth shut and let them believe it. If he let them talk while they thought he couldn't hear, maybe he'd hear the truth of this whole crazy situation. This had to be a terrible prank.

"I didn't mean right now. I meant -," Mr. Specter said. Even without looking, Mike could tell this guy was not happy.

"You mean the amnesia?" the nurse asked. Mike did his best not to change his expression. Was she talking about him? The nurse sighed. "The doctor should be free in a minute. You can ask him for more specifics. I'm not experienced with the condition. I'm sorry. I'm sure the doctor will have a better guess for you."

"A better guess," Mr. Specter grunted.

"I'm sorry, Mr. Specter. Amnesia isn't specific. It's not a broken bone. It's a mental abnormality." Mike heard footsteps and then the squeak of a marker on a board - the one he knew was across from his bed. So he'd slept through a shift change, then, and now new-nurse was writing her name. One more thing to add to the list of things for him to remember. When the poor woman spoke again, she sounded anxious, not that Mike could blame her. "It's different for everyone it affects. Sorry. I'll be back with the doctor in a minute to do a check up." Mike listened to her leave, the door shutting behind her, and then the room was stupidly quiet.

Mike could feel his pulse in his finger where the blood oxygen machine held it, and it pulsed in time with the soft beeps of the monitor connected to his chest. Mike couldn't hear anything from it, but he knew from before that he had an IV going. Concentrating, he could hear the movement of air.

Someone sighed, and Mike remembered he wasn't alone. Mr. Specter was still in the room, and judging by his sigh, he was closer than before. Mike could feel the sheets move as the sharply dressed man trailed his hand down the side of the bed, him walking closer to Mike's head. Then his fingers left the bed and nimbly touched above Mike's left ear.

Mike jumped awake when the fingers touched him, eyes snapping open and a wildly concerned look on his face when he looked up at the older man. Mr. Specter retracted his hand immediately and looked both ashamed and apologetic for the contact.

"Sorry. I didn't mean to startle you," he said with an obviously practiced patience. "I was checking your head wound."

"Head wound?" Mike asked, like he thought the guy was lying even though he probably wasn't, and reached up to feel what he hadn't noticed before - the bandages. "What um..." Mike looked at the other man, who seemed to know the coming question would take some time because he sat down, and frowned. "What happened to me?"

"I'm sure Doctor Sassy Pants wants to tell you himself, but I'll give you the lingo-free version. You went home the other day after work - around ten. When you didn't show up the next morning, I tried checking up on you. I'll admit I was more annoyed than concerned. You weren't at home, and neither was your bike. I called Donna to tell her to yell at you if you were at the office and-," Mr. Specter stopped when Mike squeezed his eyes shut and shook his head. "What?"

"Donna?" Mike asked. Who? Was he supposed to just click and know who that was? It took a moment longer than it should, a moment in which Mr. Specter looked like someone had forced a stray puppy into a van and he'd been planning to adopt it, but then Mike realized that the answer was yes. He was supposed to know who Donna was. "I'm sorry. I- I want to believe you-"

"Mike," the man said, holding up a hand to silence him. "It's alright. I know you're trying. I'm... sorry too. I should explain better. Donna is my assistant at the office."

"That's the other thing," Mike said, holding up his hand, pointing at his guest and then motioning feebly to himself. "Office? Job? I have a job?"

"Damn, you really were a hopeless case before I met you, weren't you?" Harvey asked. Mike hadn't lost pride as well as memory, and he glared at Mr. Specter for the insult. "Sorry. Well, maybe not really. Yes. You have a job. You work for me."

Mike laughed outright and then winced as his chest ached. He pressed a hand to his bandaged torso and took a slow breath. "Work for you? What am I, a spy? A plant? Do you work for the government and need a guy in the drug circuit?"

That must have been the wrong thing to say. Mr. Specter frowned deeply.

"None of those, actually, but this may be too much at once. I'll explain later. When I called Donna, she said you weren't in the office. Almost immediately after I hung up with her, my cell rang. The hospital was calling because they'd found you in the goddamned ditch across the street. Luckily, not only was my business card in your suit pocket, but you apparently listed me as you ICE contact in your phone."

"We must be... close, then?" Mike tested, not wanting to make Mr. Specter upset. The man's intensity made it easy for Mike to imagine he had a concealed knife in his shoe. But so far the dapper figure hadn't made any dangerous motions, so Mike relaxed. It felt familiar to be calm around this man. Maybe it wasn't all a dream, after all. Maybe he did know this guy and just had amnesia.

"You could say that," was the vague response he got. There wasn't even a frown or a smile to go with it.

"How reassuring of you," Mike said, his lips tugging upward. He didn't know why he wanted to smile. This wasn't a joke. This wasn't funny. But he wanted to smile anyway, because this guy's voice was... different.

Mike's smile was rewarded with a tiny lift of Mr. Specter's lips, but then the door opened and the smile was gone from both their faces. The doctor was there.

"Good evening, Michael," he greeted and held his hand out to shake.

"Mike," the genius corrected. Their hands touched, but the doctor didn't really shake them. Mike was glad. He was pretty sure it would have hurt him.

"Mike, then. I'm Doctor Pavel. Laura here is going to do a bit of a check-up on you, and then I'll check how your stitches and bandages are doing when she's done. In the meantime, I hear you may be having a memory problem," he said. Mike felt the same way that Mr. Specter looked. This doctor was an idiot. Please make him leave and never speak again. The nurse from before came and stood by Mike. She smiled at him as she lifted his wrist to scan the patient bracelet there. The monitor near her lit up and she nodded before going about taking his blood pressure.

"Ah, yeah. It seems to be that way. I gather it's not 2008 anymore. Seems I missed the decade mark," Mike said, keeping most of his sarcasm at bay. Mr. Specter, despite his obvious agreement with the doctor's intelligence, gave Mike a look that he translated to mean 'shut up and take this seriously.' Mike returned the look with one he hoped shouted 'what? what did I do?'

"Alright. According to Harvey," Dr. Pavel motioned to the lavender tie guy, "you've lost four years. I've heard of worse." Mike glanced at Harvey with confused eyes, trying to gauge his thoughts. Unfortunately, Harvey wasn't looking at him. "According to documentation and research in the area recently, there are a few possibilities. The best case scenario is this. You could be suffering a 24 hour post-traumatic amnesia, and you'll be fine in the morning."

"And what happens if that's not the case?" Mike asked. There was always a worst case scenario, but he wouldn't ask for that directly. In his experience, however, the answer was almost never the best scenario. The nurse typed something in on the computer and then removed the blood pressure cuff. After that, she seemed to be checking his temperature.

"Well, this is the part where you get upset when I say that the amnesia could be temporary or it could be permanent, because I should have the definitive answer. Unfortunately, amnesia isn't an art or a science. It's an ambiguous mental disorder. If you wake up tomorrow with amnesia still, we can start you on cognitive therapy while you're still in the hospital for your injuries. After you're released from the hospital, however, we can't force you into therapy, but it is recommended," Dr. Pavel explained. "The cognitive therapy is like glorified counseling, but it focuses on memory and past events. We've used it before for patients suffering temporary short term amnesia. They had issues retaining new memories after an accident, but we were able to fix them. That's the best attack plan we've got in our playbook. Actually, it's the only serious play we have at all."

"And what if my memories don't come back even with your therapy?" Mike asked, a cold stone growing in place of his stomach. The nurse typed up his temperature and moved on, checking the signals of his heartbeat and blood oxygen levels.

"Well," Dr. Pavel began and then stopped to take a deep breath. "We'll have to cross that bridge if and when we come to it. But let's stay on the positive side and not go looking for trouble. There's always hope."

Harvey looked at Mike then, slowly turning his head to stare into Mike's eyes, because Mike had already been looking into Harvey's. Mike couldn't really read him, couldn't tell if this news made him happy or mad or upset. He was looking at Mike as though he wanted Mike to figure this out, to fix it on his own.

... and wasn't that just a bitch move? Hadn't Harvey said they were close? What kind of friend leaves a guy hanging like this? Actually, where the hell was Trevor? The nurse typed some more and then stepped back, smiled around at everyone while only the doctor smiled in return, and then left the room. Checkup complete.

"About your injuries," Dr. Pavel said, regaining attention. He was looking down at his forms and charts. "Your amnesia is most likely caused by the blunt force trauma to your skull, just above your left ear. You lost the most blood from that wound too. The IVs in your arm have replaced a good deal of the blood and liquids you lost already. We plan to remove those by tomorrow morning. Beyond that, you have two bruised ribs. You're left ring finger is broken and has already been fitted into a splint after you're initial consciousness earlier today. There are several minor bruises and small to medium lacerations. And you seem to have bruised your cheekbone."

Mike stared at the doctor for a long time, trying to take all that in. That didn't sound like some routine mugging. Hell, it didn't even sound like a drug mugging, and Trevor had been in a few of those. It sounded more like someone had tried to murder him, but then why leave him in front of the hospital? Where was his bike?

His face must have looked confused, because Dr. Pavel sighed and added, "You got punched in the face, Mike." That wasn't even what Mike was confused and stunned about. Also, Mike didn't like how his name sounded coming from this man's mouth. He needed to stop it. Mr. Ross was better, even if it did make him sound like a father.

"Yeah, and a bit more, I'd say," he said, stunned. "Do we... I mean, do you know who did all that to me?"

"Unfortunately no," Dr. Pavel said. That's when Harvey took over, and Mike felt a wave of relief. Harvey's voice just sounded so much more ... assured.

"We were hoping you'd tell us when you regained consciousness, but that's not going to happen anymore," he said.

Mike took a deep breath and then swallowed heavily, his eyes on Harvey's again. Dr. Pavel may as well have left. "So what's going to happen to me now?"