Chapter Three

Reese stayed in his room after Jack and his family left. He could barely move, and definitely could not stand to face Beckett in that condition.

Laying on his bed, he pulled the quilt to his chin and stared out the window at the stars. It was not late, but Reese felt like he had been awake for days. He had the feeling that whatever happened over the next few days would not matter – he was numb, emotionless.

He heard the door open and close, then heard soft footsteps on the carpet as Beckett came near. Reese did not bother looking over his shoulder to greet him.

Beckett sat gently on the bed, then Reese felt him lay down. He rolled toward Reese and propped himself up on his elbow. Carefully, he brushed Reese's hair out of his face.

Reese closed his eyes, feeling a lump rising in his throat. Behind him, Beckett wrapped an arm around his waist, bringing his head down to rest against Reese's.

The feeling of his body against Reese's seemed to calm Reese's emotions. Reese let out a shuddering sigh, then settled into the pillow. He could think of nothing to say, and realized that no words were necessary at that moment.

He leaned against Beckett, feeling his body heat and knowing that he somehow knew what was wrong, somehow knew that Reese hurt. Beckett's breath brushed across his ear, peaceful in its regularity.

That was all Reese wanted: Regularity. He wanted to go back to his teen years, to make Jack stay. He wanted to never have met him in the first place. He wanted to never have fallen in love with someone he knew could not return his feelings.

A high-pitched whine escaped Reese's throat, and he closed his eyes even tighter. He reached down and took Beckett's hand, squeezing his fingers. Beckett held on even closer, letting Reese know he was not going anywhere.

———

The next morning, Reese woke up alone. He rolled over expecting Beckett to be asleep beside him, but found only the disturbed quilt. When he crawled out of bed, he realized he had never changed out of yesterday's clothes.

After changing, Reese walked tiredly to Beckett's bedroom. The only reason he had gotten out of bed was to see him, but he found the room empty.

"Beckett!" he called down the hallway as he ran to his office. "Beckett, where are you?"

When Beckett was not in the office, either, Reese realized that yelling for him would be no use since Beckett did not talk. He ran down the stairs and searched the kitchen and living room. Then he went outside.

It was late morning, and the sky was covered in grey clouds. Reese realized his left shoulder ached, the old injury warning him of a change in the weather.

"Beckett!" he called again, looking around. He walked down the path to the bench on the cliff. Beckett stood on the grass, his hands in his pockets as he stared across the water.

Reese approached him, being careful not to look at the distance to the cliff. He turned his gaze to Beckett's face, and stared. Beckett's eyes seemed to glow, fixed on the horizon. Reese leaned against him.

"What is your story?" he said.

In the distance, a bolt of lightning flashed. Beckett jumped, snapping out of his trance.

"Calm down," Reese said, his stomach tightening as he silently prayed the thunder would not be loud. "We should go inside," he said. "This storm looks like it's going to be nasty." He took Beckett by the wrist and tugged.

Beckett's eyes were fixed on the water again. He refused to move, and instead dropped to the ground.

"Okay, fine," Reese said. He sat beside Beckett. "I don't want to stay out here too long, though."

They sat in silence for almost half an hour, watching the storm move in. Reese was glad the thunder was too far off to hear yet, but he was still uncomfortable sitting outside with it.

"Come on, Beckett," Reese said finally, standing. "It'll probably start raining soon. We should go inside."

Beckett turned his eyes to Reese, almost begging to stay outside.

Reese crouched beside him. "You're drawn to the sea, aren't you?" he said slowly. He looked across the water. "I honestly wish I knew how to help you. I wish that wherever you're from, you will take me back there. I'm tired of living here, and I'm tired of living this life. I don't know what you're feeling or even if you understand me, but I want to help you, and unfortunately, I don't know how."

He stood and offered Beckett his hand. "Let's go inside," he said. "I'll light a fire and we can watch the storm all afternoon."

Beckett took his hand and followed him into the house. Reese lit a fire in the fireplace the connected his and Beckett's bedrooms, then laid beside Beckett on the bed. For a while, they stared silently out the window.

"Sometimes I think that you're better off than me," Reese said eventually. Beckett rested his head against Reese's shoulder. "You don't seem to remember anything, and you obviously can't talk – at least not yet. You don't know where you are from or why you are here; all you seem to know is your own name. You don't know what happened to you in the past or what may happen to you in the future, and you can't get into trouble for what you say."

The first raindrops fell on the window, followed by a heavy gust of wind.

"I think I would give almost anything to be you right now," Reese continued. "I would give anything to be able to forget my past and not have to talk about it. I was shot once, you know. Almost died from it. I was thirteen. Do you want to hear the story?"

Beckett stared at him.

"I'll take that as a yes," Reese said. He settled back into the pillow and sighed. "Like I said, I was thirteen. I lived in Massachusetts then, further up the coast from here, with my mom and dad. We were coming home from a weekend trip to New York City, and we stopped at a convenience store for gas and snacks.

"And then this man came in through the front door and just began shooting people. I tried to get back to my parents, but the bastard shot me in the shoulder. See?" Reese pulled his shirt open to show Beckett the scar on his shoulder. "Shattered my scapula. Hurt like hell. I was lucky, though – I survived. There was a mother and toddler in there who didn't make it, and I had to watch them die."

He sighed again. "The police finally showed up ended up killing the guy outside the store. The entire experience left me completely broken. When I woke up in the hospital, it was as if I had woken up in my own private hell, sort of like you now. I barely spoke, barely slept. Every aspect of my life was disrupted. My parents had to move me here because I was shutting down where we were. My grandfather lived here then. He died a few years ago in a nursing home somewhere."

The rain pounded the window now, and the sky was dark enough to suggest evening. Reese stared at the fire and smiled bitterly.

"The strangest aftereffect of the shooting, though, would probably be my fear of those little pudding things. After I was shot, I couldn't move, so I just laid on the ground and stared up at this giant shelf of pudding. I had no idea at that point if I was ever going to see my parents again, and I guess I channeled all my fear into the pudding." He laughed. "It's not as if 'pudding' isn't a strange enough word as it is, but to be afraid of it? Jack laughed his ass off when I told him. He thought it was the funniest thing he had ever heard, and I guess it would've been."

Reese turned his gaze to the window. Outside, the trees blew wildly as the storm continued to rain down on Jericho. He watched as lightning lit the sky, frightening Beckett; Reese closed his eyes to wait out the thunder.

"You should've been there the day we met." He felt around in his pocket. "If I had my wallet with me, I would show you the picture he took. My parents got me a job taking care of the yachts that used to come here. My first day, I walked down the dock, and Jack comes running at me with his arms in the air." He smiled and gave up searching. "He knocked me off the dock and onto the sand, then took a picture before I could think. I have this confused, surprised, constipated smile on my face, but it was the most hilarious thing. That was the first time in almost three months that I genuinely smiled."

For a few moments, Reese was quiet. He glanced at Beckett to make sure he was still awake. Beckett's eyes seemed to be glued to the window, to the raindrops running down the glass. Reese considered being quiet for longer, but he could not hold in his words. It had been years since he had had someone unbiased to talk to.

"I can't believe he's married now," he said. "Where was his ring the night he came back?" He sighed. "Elise is lucky, though. She loves him and he loves her back, which is much more than I could ever hope for. And that baby! He's adorable. I definitely could not give Jack one of those, unless by some weird genetic mistake…Never mind.

"Did you see his face when I brought him in here, though? It was so freaking funny!" Beckett smiled and Reese ruffled his hair. "Good job, dude," he said.

"God, why do I keep bringing him up? I told him I was through with him, but I can't stop thinking about him." He groaned. "I wish I'd never met him."

Beckett looked up at Reese, his eyes questioning.

"What?" Reese said. He stared at his feet. "I guess I don't really mean that. How about, 'I wish I had never fallen in love with him'?"

Beckett smiled.

"You have to be some kind of genius," Reese said. "You're beginning to understand what I'm saying after only a week. Do you know how hard of a language English is to learn?"

He rolled onto his side and faced Beckett. "There is something about you I'm missing," he said. For a while, he simply stared at Beckett's face. Beckett mostly kept his eyes on Reese's, but occasionally looked beyond his shoulder out the window.

"Your eyes are the same color as the ocean water," Reese said eventually, slowly. "I don't think that's it, though." He thought for another few minutes before saying, "What about that necklace I found you with? Where is it?" He had to make a motion around his neck to symbolize the necklace before Beckett picked it up off the bedside table and handed it to him.

Reese took the necklace carefully. The leather string gathered in his hand beneath the charm, which was heaver than Reese remembered it being. In daylight, the charm was a murky blue, the same color as Beckett's eyes. The leather strap went through a hole in the center of the charm before securing itself.

Turning over the charm, Reese held it the proper direction. Inscribed in the back of the charm, tracing the circular shape, were words, symbols Reese did not recognize.

"Do you know what this says?" Reese asked Beckett, showing him the inscribing.

Beckett carefully took the charm, ran his eyes over it, then looked op at Reese meaningfully.

"You do, don't you?" Reese took the charm back. "But you can't tell me what it says. You frustrate me sometimes." He shook his head. "Why is the cord so long?"

Beckett took the necklace and put it around Reese's neck, then twisted the end of the cord and slid it over Reese's head again. While the charm and the first loop hung loosely, the second loop rested against Reese's throat.

"Wow," Reese said absently. He gazed at Beckett as he held the charm in his hand. "This necklace is weird. I feel weird, different. It's strange…" He trailed off, trying to work out just how he felt.

"It feels like…I'm here, but I'm everywhere else, too," he said slowly, not really seeing Beckett's face. "I feel like I'm here now, always will be here, and always have been here. It's a really strange feeling. I don't know – " He stopped, feeling a tear slide down his cheek. Quickly, he swiped it away.

"What is this?" Reese said, pulling the necklace off. "I have never felt like that before. And I honestly don't want to feel like that again." He handed the necklace back to Beckett. "I'm going to take a picture of it later and send it to my parents. They might know what it says."

Uneasy, Reese stood and moved to the fire. He pushed the logs around, then turned to Beckett. "Would you mind if I drew you?" he asked.

Beckett tilted his head slightly, questioning.

"I'll be right back," Reese said, then left to get his sketchbook. When he returned, Beckett had returned his eyes to the sky outside.

Reese sat on the bed and opened the sketchbook. Beckett watched him as he began to draw, but moved his eyes to the window after a few minutes.

Beneath Reese's pencil, Beckett's outline began to form. While it was only a sketch, Reese wanted to capture every detail of Beckett's figure while he could, every shadow from the raindrops or the way the light fell through the windows onto his face.

By the time Reese was satisfied with the sketch, Beckett's image lay on a bed, window pane squares crossing his face and the flesh of his bare chest, which Reese had drawn to match the rest of the picture. Beckett's right shoulder, the one he was not laying on, bore dark, vine-like markings that eventually led into white, feathery wings, half broken on the mattress.

Reese stared at the drawing, unsure why he had drawn Beckett in such a way. He looked at the real Beckett, who had fallen asleep some minutes before.

Tilting his head, Reese looked at the markings on the drawing's shoulder. He had completely forgotten about them, but did not want to wake Beckett to see them now.

"You just keep getting more and more interesting, don't you?" Reese whispered. Being careful not to disturb Beckett, Reese reached forward and took the necklace gently from his hand. Then he carefully stood and left the room.

In his office, he took a seat in the ergonomic desk chair, rotating between his two feet as the chair spun. He held the necklace in front of his eyes, examining it in the bright overhead light. After a moment, he took his digital camera from one of the desk drawers and took its batteries out of the miniature refrigerator beneath the desk. Loading the batteries, he laid the necklace on his electronic tablet and took a picture of it, being sure to get the details of the engraving. As he turned on the computer, he dialed his parents' phone number and hoped they were home.

"Hello?" a female voice said when the phone picked up.

"Hey, Mom," Reese said. He set the camera on its docking port and uploaded the picture.

"Reese!" she said, and Reese wondered how she had survived so long without caller ID. "How are you, hun?"

"I'm good, Mom." The file was still downloading to his computer. "How's Dad?"

His mother laughed. "Planning another one of his trips. He wants to go to somewhere in Asia this time."

"Asia?" Reese's father loved to travel, but Asia was the farthest away he had ever been. "He probably wants to climb Everest."

"God, I hope not. Is there something you want, Reese? Or do you just want to talk?"

"Actually, there's something I need to ask you guys about." He opened an Internet page and logged into his email. "Can you get to a computer?"

"I'll see if your father'll let me on." Reese heard her walk through the house and inform his father that he was on the phone and needed the computer. Before he knew it, Reese was on speakerphone.

"Reesie-boy," his father said. "How the hell are you?"

"Fine, Dad," Reese replied. "Asia this time?"

"Yep." Reese could hear keyboard keys clicking in the background. "What do you want, so I can find a campsite near Everest?"

Reese smiled, then uploaded the picture to the email. "I want you guys to look at this picture I'm emailing you and tell me if you recognize the language or know what it says."

"Are you researching for your new book?" his mother asked.

"No," Reese said. He hit the Send button. "I found a necklace on the beach and want to know what it says."

"It's beautiful!" she said after a few moments. "You found that on the beach?"

"Yeah," Reese said, leaving out the other treasure he had found. "Can you read it?"

"I don't know where it came from," his father said, "but it's old. The writing looks like some kind of glyphs, like ancient cultures used to use."

"How old do you think it is?"

"I have a stamp from the Mediterranean area that the writing reminds me of. Let me see if I can find it." Reese heard her leave the room to get the heavy book she kept her extensive stamp collection in.

"So, Reese," his father said. Reese could tell he had returned to researching Asia by the numerous clicks of the mouse. "What have you been up to?"

"Nothing much," Reese replied. "Just the normal summer routine."

"Seen any hot women on the beach?"

"Bill!" His mother returned and set the heavy book on the computer desk. "Here it is," she said after a moment. "It's from the area around Italy and Sicily. Look, hon; the letters are similar."

"No, they aren't," his father argued. "How can you say they're similar."

"Because they look the same," his mother replied. "How else would they be similar?"

Reese smiled as they continued to bicker. He picked up the necklace again and sat back in his chair, crossing his legs. "Can you guys look around and see if you can find anything?"

"Yes, dear," his mother said over his father's words.

"All right. Thanks. Bye." He hung up and closed his eyes, still grinning.