Harry's POV

Sperling and I sat in the kitchen. I was admiring her while she was looking down and staring at her cereal.

"You haven't touched your breakfast," I remarked, sipping my tea. "You love honey puffs."

Her head perked up and a glimmer of hope painted her face. "You remembered?"

"Of course I remember. It's all you ever eat."

"I don't know...it's just that you forgot the majority of last night, you forgot what happened at the house, you forgot who Peter was—"

"It's probably just a side effect of the serum. It'll go away eventually, I promise."

She didn't look like she believed me. Sperling sighed and swirled her cereal around more, as if trying to think of something to say, but kept quiet. She hadn't told me what I had forgotten either, which didn't help my cause. For all I knew, I threw up yesterday and then went to sleep. I still had a horrible cough and a lingering pain in my chest, but at least my fever was dying down.

"I'm not hungry," she said finally, getting up and taking her bowl to the sink. She rinsed a full bowl of honey puffs down the drain.

"Hey, hey, what's wrong?" I snapped, a little on edge at the fact I was still in the dark. "Why're you so upset? It's just a side effect—"

"Do you think I'm unaware of what's going on, Harry? You cough out blood, your heartbeat isn't steady and now you're forgetting things that've only been in your memory for a couple of hours; you know, yesterday you asked me what I'd do if you died. You don't have to hide anything from me anymore because you've already done that!" she yelled.

I knew exactly what she was referring to, and my neck burned hot.

"Tell me if you're going to die," she demanded sternly.

"Sperling, honestly—"

"I'm serious, Harry, I want to know—"

"I don't know—"

"Fucking hell, just tell—"

"I DON'T KNOW!" I roared, getting up out of my seat and balancing myself using the edge of the table. "Do you want me to say yes and tear you apart? Or would you rather me say no and get your hopes up? I don't know what's going on with me, so how could I possibly tell you the truth?"

She stormed out of the kitchen even after I called for her to come back. I threw my teaspoon into the cup, sending drops of tea onto the surface of the table. I knew she was frustrated—I certainly would've been had I known she was going to die—and that she could tell I was lying.

I was going to die and there was nothing she, or I, or anybody could do about it. Tragic.

I figured I could at least explain myself to her—God only knew how miscommunication was a uniquely human characteristic that would eventually drive all of us to the brink of insanity. I picked myself up and called for her as I ventured back up the stairs, pulling my weight up using the railing.

"Sperling, c'mon, honestly, I don't know how long this thing's gonna last and I don't want to give you false hope of any kind," I began, making my way over to the bedroom door to hear sniffling coming from the other side of the bed on the ground. I peered over the mattress and sure enough, she was sitting there wiping her nose and eyes, trying to rid herself of the evidence that she was hurt by what was going on. "Why are you crying?"

"Because you're an asshole and I hate you," she replied bitterly, turning away from the sound of my voice. I huffed and sat down beside her only to have her nudge me away.

"I love you."

"No you don't, you're just saying that to get me to stop all of this crying nonsense—"

"No, Sperling, listen to me," I sighed, gathering the courage to tell her everything that I had going on in my mind, "I honestly don't know what's going on with me, and not just in terms of my health. You know, for the longest time I thought Bria and I would grow old together—doing our thing and all that—but that changed when I spent time with you. It's cliché as fuck, but I feel so happy—happier than I've been in years—when I'm with you. You still piss me off, you have a short temper and you're stubborn as hell, but I...look at me, sweetheart..."—I coaxed, turning her to face me—"I love you so much. I don't know what I'd ever do without you. And, I mean, yeah, why should you trust a con artist, right? I'm an asshole, you're absolutely correct, and you've got so many reasons to hate me—"

"I don't," she sniffed, "I don't hate you at all."

I brought her in closer to me and held her tight. I knew I wasn't her 'other half', but that was the good thing; Sperling never needed someone to complete her; she needed someone to bring out the best in her, and I'd like to think I was the one that did that.

"I love you," I repeated into her hair.

"I love you," she replied. "Please, Harry, for the love of God, let me know if I can do anything to help you, okay? We'll make it through this."

A nasty feeling wrenched in my gut; one of us will, I thought to myself.

"Yeah, we will," I lied. "We will."

We spent the rest of the day lying in bed; she fell asleep for an hour or two once or twice while I sat there and questioned how I ever got so lucky as to meet her of all people. Something felt quite right—almost dream-like—as we lay beside each other, and I couldn't help but to imagine what life would be like had our circumstances been altered. What would it be like if I hadn't been a convicted felon? What would it be like if she wasn't a cop? Things would be very different—perhaps we could've even had regular lives together without all of this hiding from Phoenix shit.

Of course, that pondering led me to wonder what our lives would be like had me not met each other at all; I'm sure I would've been stuck in the same cycle of rolling around in money that wasn't mine and lying through my teeth to get what I wanted, while she would've probably sat at a desk for the rest of her life, filing paperwork and sharpening pencils for the cops that actually walked the beat. I mean, I still lied, but this time it was for her sake and not my own.

Sperling slept on, and I tinkered with the theories in my head. While it was irrational to say that I couldn't picture feeling the same way about anybody else, I really couldn't. She was so familiar to me; I knew that she liked sleeping curled up and that she never slept with anything more than her undergarments on. I knew that she liked her coffee with three creams and two sugars, and her choice of comfort food was macaroni and cheese. I knew that she always drew on her eyeliner on the right side first, that her favourite colour was yellow, and—as I pulled her closer into me, my body spooning with hers—that she was, and would be forevermore, my favourite altogether.

***

A few days passed, and, according to Sperling, my memory had never been worse. What I had forgotten I couldn't remember, and she insisted I rack my brain for something. I didn't remember any of it, nor did I recall how we got to this place in the first place. Why were Sperling and I here anyway? Why did I feel so sick? What was I sick with? Where exactly were we? What the hell was going on?

"Okay, Harry, tell me everything you remember," she said.

"I...we were at the fashion show and—"

"What? No, no, you have to remember...okay, how about this: do you know who drove you here?"

"Where is here?"

"We're in Madras. It's the cottage you used to stay at."

No wonder it looked familiar. Some of the furniture had been changed though.

"Shit, really? You drove, I'm assuming? Sperling, I've got a massive headache and—"

"No, no," she hung her head and rubbed her temples, "Bria drove us here."

My heart stopped. Bria?

"That's impossible. Bria's in Prague—"

"Harry, your memory's going. We saw Bria at the fashion show in Paris and then you left with her because she forced you to but then she broke you out and stuck this—I don't even know what it is—some serum thing?—into you that bypasses this tracking device that was injected to you while you were in her hands, but the serum's got some stupid side effects and it's killing your brain. Do you remember any of that at all?"

I was in shock. I believed her, for the story was too elaborate for her to conjure up on the spot, but nothing made sense at all.

"I know about Bria. I know that you used me to get to her, but I also know that you changed somewhere along the way. I know about all of it, okay? You have to trust me on this," she said. I nodded, but I still didn't understand.

Not long later, after a couple of frustrating attempts to re-establish what was going on, the shrill tone of the telephone blared and caught our attention. She got up to answer it. I mouthed the word speaker to her, and she did just that so both of us could hear.

"Hel—?"

"Clarine, you've been a very bad girl. Hiding out in the forests of Madras with an escapee con man?" crooned the voice of an older man, followed by a shameful tsk tsk tsk. "I'm sure you know you have to come in to work on Monday? Papers to file, files to sort—you know...police work?"

Her eyes widened as she turned to me. "I think you have the wrong—"

"DON'T FUCKING LIE TO ME, I KNOW YOU'RE THERE AND I KNOW STYLES IS TOO!"

Her mouth went parched and her breathing quickened. This wasn't something she was ever trained to do, and I could tell. How the hell did anybody know where we were?

"How about this: I'll cut you a deal. If you get Styles back to me in four hours, I'll spare your family—"

"Don't fucking touch her family!" I spat, suddenly standing up and grabbing the receiver away from her. I wasn't even sure whom I was dealing with. She began to cry.

"Oh, Styles! Nice of you to join me. Well, you heard me. You've got four hours to get yourself to the White Rock pier in Canada—right across the border, you know? Gotta love the Canadians, they've got a great fish and chip selection—"

"Who the hell is this?"

I heard a car honk from the outside of our cottage, followed by a voice telling us to hurry.

"That'd be too easy for you, now wouldn't it?" the man laughed. "Oh, and by the way, for every hour you're not here, I'm killing someone off. I'll start with the man—or, wait, no, maybe her sister—"

"You're fucking sick. What do you want? I'll turn myself in, it doesn't have to be like this—"

"Four hours, Styles."

And then the call dropped.

Sperling was sobbing into her palm by the window, unable to speak clearly. Things were going from bad to worse, and now, with the addition of choosing her family over me, I gave her every right to break down.

"Sperling, what's going—?"

"Harry! Clarine! We don't have much time! Phoenix got to them before I did and I drove here as fast as I could—" the voice called from the foyer. I heard footsteps climbing up the stairs as Sperling rushed around to gather her things.

And then she stood there in the doorway looking better than she had been in years.

"B-Bria?"

She looked at me funny. Clarine came out of the bathroom only to have Bria frown at her.

"What's gotten into him? Hell, what's gotten into you?" Bria asked Sperling.

"I g-got the phone c-call," she stuttered. Bria pursed her lips and nodded solemnly, giving Sperling a moment to collect herself. "That serum's affecting his memory. He...he doesn't remember seeing you at the fashion show—"

"Fucking Christ," she huffed. "You know what? We have to go. Clarine, pack everything and meet me outside in five."

Sperling nodded and followed Bria's orders as she went back outside. A rush of excitement came over me in seeing her again, but I was still attached to the girl that was grabbing all of our belongings and shoving it into a gym bag.

"Are you guys friends?" I asked.

"What? No, not at all. The only reason why we're even talking is because of you," she replied, grabbing my hand and tugging me out the door, but before we went down the stairs, she stopped.

"Aren't we short on time? Why are you stopping?"

"I...I can't do this," her lip trembled, "I can't choose between you and my family. Harry, I love you—"

She loved me?

I pulled her close and hugged her. The magnitude of what was going on didn't hit me until now—this was serious. I hadn't done anything remotely dangerous before, and now it came down to my life or the lives of four others. Everything was happening so quickly; I wasn't even sure if I knew what was going on. So far, I had collected that we were on the run from the company that Bria broke me out of, and now they knew about Sperling.

Nothing made sense at all.

"I—I love you too, Sperling," I reciprocated. I did, I really did. I hadn't thought that saying those words to her would have such an impact on me, but it left me jittery and nervous inside. "Look, we'll find a way out of this. No one's gonna die, sweetheart, I promise. I'm the best of the best, remember?"

"It's not like that, Harry. These people are bad people and they won't stop until they get what they want—"

"I won't let anything bad happen to you. You're safe with me, okay? I love you," I stroked her hair. And, for good measure, I reiterated myself, "I love you so much."

My chest was heaving and in pain, but I managed my way down the stairs and out the door with her supporting me. Bria was waiting with a black car, grimy and ridden with dust, right outside.

"Is he okay?" she asked. Sperling nodded, and then Bria asked her, "Are you?"

Sperling shook her head. Bria sighed and crossed her arms.

"Look, I don't know what it takes to be a cop but clearly you've got balls if they let you in. You've got to act like a cop, not some fashionista with an edge for justice, you hear me?"—she waited for Sperling to nod before continuing on—"When you see the guards, they may have one of your family members. Shoot the guard. You've got good aim—I saw the bodies you shot the other day in your home, all of them straight through the chest or the head—so use it to your advantage. Breathe deep, get a clear shot, and don't let anything distract you. Once I hear that shot, I'll take out everyone else—"

"Why would you wait to take the rest out?" Sperling asked.

"If I go around shooting people before they've been alerted, I'll risk the whole damn thing. Trust me, I know what I'm doing. What you have to understand is that these people never cut a clean deal—they're con artists too. They'll tell you that your family will be set free if you hand Harry over, and they'll most likely have all of your family there, but in reality, they'll kill all of you once he's in their hands. Do not let it get to that stage; kill the guard before they have a chance to harm anybody. Do you understand me?"

Sperling nodded over and over again. Bria made her way into the driver's seat while the two of us sat in the back. It wasn't long before we were driving twenty over the speed limit, charging towards the Canadian border.

I sat back and listened to Sperling and Bria talk about the specifications of Bria's plan, almost as if I wasn't there. It still struck me as completely barbaric to think that Sperling had the guts to kill anybody; apparently the serum had wiped out more than I wanted it to. To me, it seemed like only a couple of days ago that we were in Vegas, right after Sperling got bumped back to a desk job. Now she was working alongside one of the only con artists that was better than I was.

I had so many questions for Bria too; why had she left me all those years ago when I proposed? Why was she even helping Sperling? God, if I could only remember what had happened—I felt like a tabula rasa—a blank slate—and I hated it far too much. Sooner or later, Sperling leaned back into me and let out a deep sigh.

"I wish we could start over. Every single thing," she said.

"What do you mean?" I questioned. I started coughing, and blood came from my throat into the tissue I held. "What the—?"

"The side effects. You've been coughing up blood ever since the serum...well..."

"Tell me about what you were saying before," I diverted the conversation about myself. "Why do you wish we could start over?"

"Knowing what I know now, I probably would've changed the way everything happened. I would've...I would've given you something to remember me by," she explained. "I would've let us stay in Vegas a little longer, too."

"You're everything to me," I whispered, clutching her hand in mine and kissing it. "Everything we've been through, regardless if I remember it or not, has built a foundation for us. Like a house, you know?"

She looked at me with her warm, doe eyes and kissed me as if it were the last time we would see each other—memory loss or not, I was sure to remember this one forever. It was so distinct; her lips were soft and pressed against mine gently enough to make me beg for more, but hard enough to knock some sense into me; her hand grazed my cheek and trickled down to my neck.

"You're my home," she said quietly. Something in my heart faltered, then warmed to such an extent that fueled an even deeper kiss from me to her.

"I'll always love you," I mumbled into her mouth, "and I'll always be here for you. We'll be fine, sweetheart."

***

we are nearing the end, my friends.

(((prep ur tissue boxes tysm)))

there are literally 2 (possibly 3, depending on how i'm feeling ahh) chapters left. 

i'm going insane bc of this fic man, this is frickin me up real bad

(also, thanks so much for getting this fic to 5k votes aw, like two out of three of my stats are bright red yay!)

pce it homies xx