To the author of Crystalline (that is so much more than a figure skating or Nathan Chen fanfic)-Thank You.

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"Is it true you have a girlfriend?"

"Stop teasing. People would think you're a clown with a smile that wide," responded Dan.

"Come on, man! What happened to the mystery girl that you like?", Josh asked, elbowing his friends for details.

"I don't have a girlfriend, and none of your business," he snapped, focusing on working on his programming assignment, ignoring the older GTA in the process.

"Josh, let him off," said Gloria, placing a manicured hand on her boyfriend's shoulder.

"Fine. How's the person who wasn't good with faces and you going? Steady, I bet?"

SMACK! Startled, Gloria muttered a quick apology to the neighbors, and faced her boyfriend as he massaged his cheek.

"He said cut it out, Josh! Did you not hear..."

"Since you will probably not let it go...her name's Olivia, Olivia Miracle."

Dragging a side table in front of him, Josh pulled up his computer, and quickly typed in the name on a search engine.

"What are you doing?"

"Checking to see if my friend's being taken for a fool. You never know," he warned, pointing to a scoffing Dan as Gloria sighed at her boyfriend's antics once again.

"Is she perhaps 5' 6', blonde, with green eyes, and studied at Oberlin Conservatory?"

Dan furrowed his eyebrows with concern. "Yes. Why?"

Standing up, he put aside another chair, showing him an illustrious music portfolio of one Olivia Miracle, several musical concertos under her belt along with various accolades and awards in her name.

"Wow. It looks like the girl you're crushing on is pretty famous..."

"I guess," Dan said. Olivia had mentioned she used to play piano, not that she was a piano prodigy.

"Hmm. That's weird," Josh commented as he read the most recent news articles.

"What?", Dan asked, wondering what else he didn't know about her.

"It seems like she's been on hiatus for several months. Let's see, the article says 'after an accident' she ended..."

"What incident?", replied Dan who had been against this idea in the beginning, but was dying to know now.

Reading the headline, he was astonished to find out this news.

"This can't be true...", he whispered. Gloria looked at the article and started reading aloud.

RENOWNED PIANIST, CHESS CHAMPION, AND OTHERS SHOT IN CROWDED THEATRE

"Several casualties reported when an armed shooter came into the crowded Alliance movie theater and fired...Among the victims reported are a world-famous chess champion, several Case Western Reserve University student athletes, a movie theater usher and a classical pianist due to have her next concert at Oberlin Conservatory. The suspect was shortly arrested after a..."

"Stop, just stop," Dan said, falling to the ground on his knees after hearing the news.

"This was several months ago," observed Josh. "There's another one saying that her manager said that she was taking a break after a severe traumatic brain injury. No word since then."

"After we met at the airport..." Dan muttered.

Recently, I've been harder at faces than before.

No wonder she would not recall him. It was never the fact that she wasn't good with faces.

She literally could not remember.

It's a constant in a world that seems to change every day for me. Never recalling where I am each morning gets old real quick.

"Jeez. Just dump her then. That baggage ain't worth it, man," quipped Josh.

Gloria faced her boyfriend, yelling, "What is wrong with you? If I had a TBI one day, would you do the same?"

Once again, Josh dropped to his knees, apologizing to his goddess. "You know I don't mean that if it's you."

"Why would someone leave someone who's had an injury? How about a disease, sickness, illness or medical condition for that matter? That does not make them of any less worth!"

Dan's tears continued dissipating into the ground as he imagined the pain that she must have been in waking up in that hospital.

He hated hospitals, and feared doctors, especially after everything he had gone through.

The memories he had long since suppressed came flying back.

Mommy, don't make me go in there.

You have to, honey. It's for the best.

But it hurts, his younger self cried as the nurses dragged him away.

"All I'm saying is that makes it harder to love someone when you have to take care of them like that," commented Josh, throwing his hands up.

"And? We're all imperfect. All of us get sick at some point, and as someone almost in her residency program, I cannot believe that you would dare imply that he should stop befriending a girl due to that, especially after she has gone through a traumatic experience!"

"She's right," said Dan, wiping his tears as he stood up.

"What?", said Josh, wondering what his non-PC friend had to say on the matter.

"I am no stranger to offending people, but I agree with Gloria. What you're saying...it's a type of discrimination, and I won't stand for it. It's just like the people that discriminate against Koreans. It's wrong, and unjust."

"I was just offering my opinion, Jeez. Why'd you get so offended this time?"

"Because I almost died from Leukemia, you *******," hollered Dan.

Josh answered, "I had no idea, buddy...Are you okay?"

"I've been in remission for years, but I'm glad you did this though."

"You are?", asked Gloria.

"Yes, I know for sure now."

"Know what?", asked Josh, looking at his friend like he had just grown horns on his head.

He turned to face the two of them, placing his hands on his hips.

"I like Olivia."

"Ok..."

"And I'm going to try and pursue her...romantically."

The couple glanced at each other, pondering over what this could mean for the stats expert.

Could he really be serious?

"I'm dead serious."

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Author's note: Coming up with this chapter made me cry, not gonna lie. (That rhymed, idky.)