Startled, Luke jumps as much as is possible for a man in a hospital bed strapped to at least three different machines. One of them has a monitor on which a lime green line zigs and zags erratically, which he knows from television indicates that his heart is pounding, though he didn't need the screen to tell him that much. He wants to throw her words back in her face, tell her she shouldn't do that either, shouldn't talk to him like he's a fucking kid who doesn't know what's best for him. There's a big difference, he wants to explain, between not knowing and not caring. One look at her, though, is all it takes to quench the righteous fire burning inside of him.

"Eden," he says, surprised to have remembered even that much, though the mere sight of her has begun to bring back more and more. He remembers the train station now, the dull lighting coming down from the ceiling, the blaring sirens, the face of an angel. His cheeks burn red, and guilt for what he put this perfect stranger through gives way to embarrassment at what he remembers saying in a haze of blood loss. He has the terrible feeling that he isn't even remembering the worst of it yet.

By the time he drops his hands, the tubes have fallen to the side of the bed and he's breathing on his own, but he leaves the needle jutting haphazardly out of his arm.