National Security:Turn the Page

"Meg, I love you too. I see now that I'll never be able to stop loving you," he said.

The second thing he whispered to me was "From this moment on, any time that anyone asks you anything, you don't remember shit."

"Meg, if people walk into the room that you've known forever, you don't remember them," he told me.

"You don't remember little things," he said.

"You can tie your right shoe," he told me. "...But not the left one."

"When you get dressed put your bra on outside of your shirt," he said.

He gave me a whole list of things to remember not to remember. Like I could read but I couldn't write. I could only remember part of the alphabet and only certain numbers. When I met people, I'd have to remember not to remember them. It was hard and we practiced it a lot over the next few days.

When my mother came to visit me, and I knew the psychologists were watching us, I pretended not to remember her.

And for the next few times she came, I always forgot who she was, until the fifth or sixth time she came. Then she became the woman from last week who visited me.

I know it was hard on Mom, but having my ass in jail wouldn't have been any easier on her and a hell of a lot worse on me.

Seeing people from the agency was easier. When Arnie came to see me for the first time, I even convinced him that I didn't remember him. He was one sneaky son of a bitch though and he almost caught me. I had begun walking a few days before he came and he took me on a walk around the hospital.

He was talking to me as we walked and before I knew it, he was letting me lead us around the hospital and talking to me at the same time. He was asking me questions about certain things that I claimed not to remember and then I noticed that he was watching me and where I led us.

I walked right past my room and kept going and I started looking concerned, and then I just sat down on the floor.

I thought about never seeing Dan again and I just started crying. Arnie, of course, thought it was because I was distraught because we were lost.

"Meg, we're not lost," he said. "I can take us back to your room."

"Dan," I said. "Dan has to find us. He won't know where we are."

I started crying all over again and Arnie was shaken, he called for help.

The agencies best psychologists told him that my brain was basically scrambled.

I could remember bits and pieces of things, but the memories were incomplete and the synaptic junctures were not connecting. There was also probably some major damage to the links between my right and left brain hemispheres. That was why I had trouble not only remembering certain things but even processing some basic things. The things that alarmed them the most was Dan's shoe thing, the being able to tie one shoe but not the other had them stumped.

They also told Arnie that I would probably maintain my child like happy state for a long time, if not the rest of my life. Basically, I wasn't capable of functioning on a higher level and would need constant care, probably for the rest of my life.

I wasn't dangerous and with the right support I could probably live out a normal life, but I'd be unable to work or hold a job. Maybe with a lot of patience, I could learn to do certain duties to take care of myself, but it would be hit and miss. Like maybe I could learn to wash dishes, but not to wash clothes. It would take a lot of time and effort but it was possible.

"Is she competent to stand trial?" asked Arnie.

"For what?" asked the doctor. "She has very little memory of anything before she woke up 3 weeks ago?"

Dan, of course, came to see me and be with me every day. I lived for his visits. They were my reward for all of the lies and subterfuge.

I understood what he was having me do now. If they thought that I was brain damaged, I would get out of spending the rest of my life in a federal prison.

But I'd rather go to prison forever and have Dan visit me, than be free and have him not in my life, so I needed to ask him what his intentions were.

There was also the problem that since my body was getting its strength back, my reproductive system and sexual organs had come back online as well. Every time I saw Dan, I wanted to pull him into bed with me. I wanted it so bad, that I'd begun taking his hands and rubbing them over my body. Once, when Dan came into the room, I hadn't noticed that Arnie and one of the Shrinks were behind him. I'd grabbed Dan's hand and stuck it between my legs as Dan tried to pull it away without hurting me. He was red faced with embarrassment, but the Shrink told him not to be.

"She is, after all, a grown woman. Her mind may not be fully competent, but her body is," said the doctor.

"She has her needs, and you are technically her husband," he continued.

"You need to discover what your own feelings for her are, before someone else takes advantage of her vulnerability," he said.

Dan just looked shocked. Arnie turned away because he remembered our history.

"Dan," said the psychologist. "You were one of the main reasons she came out of this, with even part of her mind intact."

"You were here with her every day since the injury," he continued.

"You read to her and talked to her and massaged her body. And you just took care of her," he said. "You wouldn't do that for someone unless there was some kind of feelings left."

"You need to figure out what you want to do," he said. "I'm recommending to my superiors that on the basis of her current mental state and her former service to her country that no charges be filed and we not pursue any legal action against her."

"The problem is that we're not spending nearly as much on care for former soldiers or intelligence personnel as we once did," he said. "She has fully recovered from the physical parts of her injury, so unless someone steps forward to care for her, she'll probably be made a ward of the state and transferred to a state run care facility."

Both the doctor and Arnie looked at Dan.

Arnie spoke first. "Dan, it kills me to see her like this," he said. "She was never my best agent, but she had the potential to be great," he continued.

"She was smart and talented, and now all of that is gone," he said, as if I wasn't standing there.

"But if you still have any feelings for her at all, I can pull a few strings to help get her transferred into your custody and even help where I can, to get you some help looking after her while you work, but it's up to you," he said.

"I need to spend a few days thinking about it," said Dan. "I need to make up my mind exactly what my feelings are. I'm not sure if I still love her despite what happened between us, or if what I'm feeling is simply guilt because in some way I feel responsible."

"If it is just guilt, then maybe it would be best for me to just step away," he said.

"I'm not sure that would be in the patient's best interest" said the doctor. "You seem to be her anchor, you pulled her out of her coma like state."

"For goodness sakes man, you were married to her for 10 God damned years" he said.

"Doesn't all of that outweigh a few indiscretions that she can't even remember?"

Then the door creaked open and in walked Ray, his walk was very stiff and I noticed that the swagger he once had was gone. He seemed to have aged 20 years in the 10 months since I'd seen him. He walked up to me, skirting around Dan and Arnie. I smiled at him with one of my biggest and brightest smiles.

"Are you another new doctor?" I asked in a child like voice.

"No Meg, don't you recognize me?" he asked seriously.

"No she doesn't, now get the fuck out of here," said Dan coldly. "And don't ever come back."

Even Arnie was surprised at the viciousness of Dan's words to Ray.

"For what it's worth, I really am sorry," began Ray. "Sorrier than you'll ever know."

"For what it's worth, the next time I see you, I'll make whoever shot you, seem like they did you a favor," said Dan

"Dan, calm down," said Arnie. "You can't go around threatening other agents under any circumstances,"

"Actually, I think it's a good sign," said the doctor.

"If there were no feeling left for her, he wouldn't still be so angry," he said.

"Why don't you take a few days and explore your feelings for your wife, agent Almond," said the doctor.

Then he and Arnie left, and Dan and I were alone. Dan walked around the room and made sure there were no bugs planted in it as he usually did.

"Would you like to take a walk Meg?" he asked loudly, as if someone was listening to us.

We walked outside of hospital to a park-like area in the rear.

"Dan, I'm not going to jail," I said happily.

"I know," he said. "You did a great job, you fooled them all."

"You'll still have to be careful from time to time," he said. "But after a few years everyone will have forgotten all of this and you'll be just another name on a government pension list."

"You'll be able to have a relatively normal life," he said.

I started crying and Dan wiped my tears away.

"What's wrong Meg?" he asked.

"I don't want a relatively normal life," I said. "I don't want you to divorce me."

"Dan, I know I screwed up, but I love you so much. I'd do anything for another chance at us."

"Without having you in my life none of this makes any difference," I said.

"If you walk away from me, I might as well go tell Arnie that I shot that bitch and I'd do it again."

"Dan, you belong to me, I will never let anything come between us."

"Meg, I thought you were going to die," said Dan. "But in the back of my mind I just knew you were going to wake up again."

"I love you too, more than I can ever tell you," he said. "So if you really want to, I'd like to give us another chance too."

"I want that more than anything, Dan," I said.

"You do know that you're not going to be able to work anymore?" he asked.

"I don't care about that," I said. "As soon as you're ready we can start having those babies."

"I'm ready now," he said smirking. It was then that I knew we'd be Okay.

"So Dan, do you still love me?" I asked.

"Yes Meg," he said, sounding almost like the old Dan.

"I think I love you more," I said. "I shot that bitch because she was trying to come between us."

"I think I love you just as much," he said. "I won't let anything come between us either."

Then he left me shocked when he threw out, "Why else do you think I shot Ray's dick off?"

"And mine was a far more difficult shot. It was from much farther away and a much smaller target."

The end.