The Queen of It All

Unlike last week, kisses were apparently no longer a prelude to anything else. Jonny went to make a phone call and Madeline put the chicken in the refrigerator. Then she went downstairs, because she was starting to think she really had forgotten to lock her car.

Exiting the elevator to the parking garage, she almost ran smack into the last person in the world she wanted to see. She leapt back. So did Patrick Kane.

Then Madeline took a few quick steps forward. "What are you doing here?" she hissed.

"What?" He took a few steps back in turn. "I came to see Jonny." He was thoroughly bundled up in coat, hat, and scarf. Madeline wondered if he'd come directly from practice.

"I think he's still resting," said Madeline untruthfully.

"Oh," said Patrick. "Is he, uh, how is he doing?"

Madeline took a look around her first. The parking garage seemed deserted except for the two of them, but Madeline had lots of experience with places that seemed deserted. She grabbed Patrick by the arm and pushed him off toward the wall.

"Look," she said, "it's a good thing I got to you first. Because, Patrick. He doesn't remember."

"About—" said Patrick, stopped and licked his lips. "Are you serious?"

"He didn't remember my name. He didn't remember anything."

"Oh. Shit." They stared at each other.

Then they both started talking at once.

"He's gonna hear from—" said Patrick.

"I don't think anyone's going to—" said Madeline. They both went silent again.

"I don't think anyone's going to talk to him about it," said Madeline quickly. "I mean, doesn't everyone agree by now that it was just stupid? And people will be careful."

"I don't know," said Patrick uneasily. "He's gonna get some weird version of it eventually."

"I'll talk to him," said Madeline. "Not you. You're on the team, I'm not."

"I don't think it even matters," Patrick muttered. "Who knows if he's even gonna play again this season."

"Of course he will!" said Madeline. Oh, god, what if he didn't? Jonny around the condo all the time with no hockey? Christ.

"You said he didn't remember you. That—doesn't sound great."

"Well, he said he was already remembering stuff," said Madeline, ignoring the fact that Jonny would probably still say that if he wasn't. Patrick knew it as well as she did.

"Aren't you supposed to stay with him?" Patrick asked.

"What? Oh." Madeline remembered about her car. She hit the button and it beeped. "Just came down here for that."

"Oh." They looked at each other some more.

Madeline barely even knew Patrick Kane. She'd met him last spring, but it wasn't like they'd spent much time together. And everything had been going to shit and Patrick was hockey.

He started toward the elevators.

"Where are you going?" Madeline demanded.

"I still want to talk to Jonny. I'll just go see if he's up, okay?"

Madeline glared at him, but getting Charles at the front desk to physically bar him from the elevators seemed like an extreme reaction. Patrick accompanied her up.

Outside the parking garage elevators, they rounded the corner and Madeline froze in the doorway. In the lobby, Charles at the desk was chatting happily with her dad. Patrick, unaware of the gravity of the situation, propelled her forward into the room.

"Madeline!" dad exclaimed, but he was looking behind her. "And Mr Kane."

Mister fucking Kane. What a dad thing to say.

"Madeline has told me all about you," said dad, who was evidently going for some kind of bingo.

"Hi, uh…" said Patrick.

"Phil Becker," said dad, beaming at them both. "Madeline's father."

"Oh," said Patrick, in far too knowing a way for someone who didn't know anything.

Madeline took it back. Patrick Kane hadn't been the last person in the world she wanted to see. Here was the true #1 himself, having a cose with Charles and carrying a large wicker basket with a lot of purple gauze ribbons tied to it.

"What in the world is that?" said Madeline. "Did you get Jonny an I'm-sorry-you-have-amnesia gift basket?"

"Oh, no," said dad. "This is from Mrs Hammond."

Madeline stared at him. "It can't be. It's only February 17th." Mrs Hammond never gave in to her insufficient personal jam consumption until at least the 27th of February. The 27th of February was like the Becker household's own private groundhog day. Would Mrs Hammond look in her pantry and see too much jam? Or too little?

"Ah, but you're out of the loop!" said dad. "You don't know that Mrs Hammond has adjusted her calculations because she's going to Cabo for Spring Break."

"Oh, come on." Mrs Hammond was 73. But dad was holding up one of the jars as proof. He shook it enticingly. Oh god, it was the boysenberry. They almost never got the boysenberry. Madeline's mouth watered. "But why is she—" She suddenly remembered that Patrick was still standing behind her, waiting to go upstairs. "Uh, we can talk later." She waved towards Patrick. "I'm kind of…"

"Oh, that's fine, it's just the jam," said dad. "I had to come right away before I ate it all."

Madeline snatched the basket from him and headed for the elevators. She wasn't safe until there were a few floors between them. Maybe Mrs Hammond's jam had memory restoring properties.

Patrick stood beside her in the elevator. "Your dad is really young," he commented.

"What?" said Madeline. "No, he isn't," although all things considered that was a pretty acceptable end to that sentence.

Patrick didn't say anything else on the ride up. Madeline thought about whether or not to leave him and Jonny alone together, and about jam.

**

When Jonny reemerged from the bedroom, having finally shaken off Bowman, two doctors, and three teammates, Madeline was gone. He searched the condo thoroughly, mindful of the last place he'd found her. She wasn't anywhere. Not unless she fit in the cupboards, which seemed unlikely. She wasn't quite that little.

She was supposed to have stayed. It wasn't like he wanted her hovering over him, but she wasn't supposed to just up and leave him here.

Jonny eyed the candle on the kitchen island. He swore he could smell it from here, even though it wasn't even lit. He couldn't remember what it smelled like lit, and that annoyed him for some reason, so he rummaged through the drawers for matches.

Jonny hadn't bought the candle. Madeline probably had. It was the main thing he'd found so far that wasn't familiar. Even the contents of the junk drawer didn't seem to have changed. She had stuff in the ‘hers' closet, but not all that much. Maybe she was into the minimalist lifestyle or something.

This place still felt empty, at least. Or maybe she'd moved stuff out. She'd seemed pretty ready to leave.

Shit, he thought, it wasn't his fault, only he wasn't really sure. He wished he knew what Duncs on the phone had meant about half the things he said. There might've been something important in all the rambling. Jonny didn't think he'd even been trying to insinuate anything. The problem was, people never finished their sentences. You didn't notice it so much when you didn't have amnesia.

There was the scrape of a key in the lock. The main door swung open and Madeline strode in, not even wearing a coat. So she hadn't left, and he wasn't sure anymore whether he hadn't wanted her to.

"Hey," said Madeline. "You've got a visitor." She gestured behind her, and there was Kaner, dressed like it was 20 below. Well, maybe it was. Jonny hadn't actually been outside in two days now.

Madeline brushed past him toward the kitchen, and Jonny turned to Kaner, starting to smile, and got hit with a flood of—something. Maybe it was resentment. Kaner was in the running for the Art Ross and seemed to be the one person on this team making something of his season.

It wasn't anything from last season, that was for sure. He remembered that fine. Maybe he'd gotten pissed a few times at Kaner's contributions to the team's general suckfest, but that was different.

"Hi," said Kaner, and he looked a little uneasy, although that was maybe because of the amnesia thing. People weren't sure how to deal with that.

"I just wanted to, you know, check that you were still alive," Kaner continued. "Then get the real report from Madeline, all that." He glanced past Jonny, to where Madeline must have been.

Jonny wondered how well he knew Madeline, how well anyone on the team did. Q seemed to think he knew her pretty well. There would've been events, probably, and he might not've remembered them anyway because they were never very interesting.

"I'm fine," Jonny told him. "I feel fine." Except for the memory thing, he really did. It kind of made him wish he just hadn't told anyone about the memory thing at all. Putting him on IR was a total overreaction. "Maybe I didn't even get amnesia from the hit," he said.

Kaner looked at him like—well, like he had a head injury. That was probably fair. "That's good you're feeling better," he said.

They seemed to have run out of things to say. Jonny wasn't sure why Kaner had showed up. It wasn't like he could've actually thought Jonny might be dead.

"Well, I—" Jonny started, just as Kaner started to talk. Jonny motioned for him to go ahead.

"I just wanted to say," said Kaner stiffly, "I mean, I wanted to tell you—"

Madeline suddenly materialized between them, clutching glass jars in either hand. "Patrick!" she exclaimed. "I just wanted to give you this before I go!" She thrust a jar toward his face.

"Oh, uh, sure," said Kaner, taking it. "Um, yeah, I'd better be going. Got a game tonight. Which, uh, you probably know…"

Jonny waved him off, and Kaner said he hoped Jonny would be back at the rink soon, and then the door shut behind him.

Jonny looked over at Madeline. That had been kind of weird.

"What are those jars?" he asked. She was still holding the other one.

"It's the jam," said Madeline, as though that explained everything. "Dad just brought it. You're not allowed to eat it all like he does."

"I'm not your dad!" Jonny retaliated, stung. He wasn't that much older than her, even if Madeline's dad was weirdly young. "And your dad would just find them in two seconds and hide them somewhere else. Maybe on the roof."

"Wait," said Madeline. "Do you remember my dad?"

Jonny considered this and realized he in fact did. "Huh. Yeah. And the 4th of July party." 50 people crammed on the tiny rooftop deck in Lakeview, and the Red Line drowning out everyone's conversation at irregular intervals. They'd run out of the good beer, but not the shitty beer or the burgers, and no one had fallen to their death. It had been kind of fun.

"Do you remember his name?" Madeline demanded.

"Phil Becker," said Jonny happily. This was a good sign. He'd be back on the ice in no time at this rate.

Madeline eyed him narrowly. "Your memory is very selective."

"I have amnesia! I can't help being selective!"

"Yeah, yeah," said Madeline. "Maybe you should've married my dad instead."

She was obviously joking, but for some reason Jonny's brain decided to actually imagine it. It was unnerving. And Madeline's dad would've looked terrible in that outfit.

"What," said Madeline, because he was staring at her.

"Oh, uh, nothing." She could clearly tell it wasn't the good kind of staring. Not that he couldn't switch to the good kind easily enough. You didn't need a long engagement to figure out what a girl looked like or whether you liked it.

But Madeline wasn't paying attention anymore, busy setting out ingredients for dinner on the counter. She only paused long enough to stare blankly at the candle for a moment. She blew it out.

**

Madeline got through dinner somehow. She felt jumpy whenever Jonny looked at her. She ate less than usual, although he wouldn't know the difference anymore.

Afterwards, Jonny said he was going to take a walk around the park just outside. Madeline let him go, since he didn't seem dizzy or anything and probably wouldn't fall in front of a car. They didn't go fast in there, anyway. Only a taxi would kill him. Or one of the tiny dogs, if it had rabies.

Madeline sat on the couch facing the windows and very carefully did not have any sort of moment. So, Jonny was probably remembering stuff. He'd remember the rest and everything would go back to normal. Madeline didn't want everything to go back to normal, but she didn't like this very much either. Should she sleep in the guest bedroom tonight? How the hell did you work something like that?

She wasn't sure if anyone could give her advice on this. It wasn't exactly a normal situation. Taylor was the usual person she complained to about the trials and tribulations of dating or marrying hockey players, and Taylor said Nick hated her because she was never going to marry him now. Madeline still wasn't sure whether that was a joke or not.

But Taylor didn't even live in Chicago, and besides, Nick hadn't had amnesia any time in the past couple years. Probably not at any other time, either.

Madeline slouched lower on the couch. If she looked straight out at the lake, she could barely make out anything except the dark. Madeline hadn't thought she'd miss the coziness of the Lakeview condo—cozy being more of a nice way of saying "way too damn crowded"—but this place wasn't cozy. At all. There wasn't anything in it.

Dad would give her advice if she asked. That didn't mean it would be any good. Shit, Kara would give her advice. Kara had probably sent her several emails full of it, which was why Madeline hadn't checked that gmail account since yesterday.

Kara's extreme skepticism at Madeline's marital choices had only been dampened by her delirious joy at not having to let Madeline back in the bedroom. She'd dismantled the bunk bed herself before dad could stop her. Madeline was halfway toward digging out Jonny's tool kit and hopping on the Red Line. The bunk bed's pieces were still in the big closet.

It wasn't long before Jonny returned. It only took a couple minutes to do a circuit of the park, and there wasn't anything else to do unless you had a dog or you were a small child. The playground did not admit anyone over 11. Madeline resented this.

Jonny stomped his boots on the mat and shook the last of the snow off his coat. God, did it have to be snowing? Madeline reminded herself that the cars were in a parking garage.

"Nice walk?" she asked.

He shrugged. Yeah, that was about the only possible response unless something extremely bizarre had happened.

"Remembering anything else?" Madeline tried.

He thought for a moment. "Not really."

"Oh." Madeline picked at the strap on her tank top. She badly wanted to pester him about it. Get him to tell her every detail he recalled from between last February and now. Find out every little scrap of information he'd kept with him while he was forgetting her name.

Or maybe she didn't want to pester him.

"I'm gonna go to bed early," said Jonny.

Madeline thought, Oh no, beds. "Me too," she said. Wait, no, that was a terrible idea. She should go to bed extremely late, and 'accidentally' fall asleep on the couch. And then do that until she died of sleep deprivation or Jonny got his memory back, whichever happened first.

But she followed him down the hallway. She usually did. They'd slept together on Tuesday night, for fuck's sake, for both interpretations of sleeping together.

The master bedroom was almost as big as Madeline's dad's entire condo, but unlike that condo, there wasn't anywhere to hide. Madeline had sometimes thought about buying some chairs for the nook. Maybe some kind of screen to separate them from the bed. Or plants? But she hadn't.

She changed as slowly as she could, but somehow Jonny was still brushing his teeth when she headed to the bathroom. Maybe he didn't remember that he always finished up and left her in peace, because he just gestured like she should join him.

She felt weird taking off her makeup in front of him. He'd seen her plenty of times without it, but every stained cotton round seemed to only highlight the difference. And—shit, Madeline thought, he wouldn't have remembered what she looked like without it. She shot him a sidelong glance, but he was intently flossing his teeth and not staring in horror. She prodded experimentally at the right side of her nose. At least she didn't seem to be breaking out this month.

Eventually they both ended up back in the bedroom. Jonny was flopped across the bed, atop the covers. Madeline had her doubts as to whether amnesia made you take seven times longer to brush your teeth.

"You're tired," Madeline told him.

"Yes…" said Jonny slowly. And he looked at her. He wasn't stupid.

So she looked back. And she reminded herself that he—wasn't all there. It was hard to think of anything other than the sharp lines of his hips disappearing into his boxers, and how he'd look when he took them off.

Madeline had always done a lot of looking without the thinking. Don't count your blessings, and all that. Ending up with someone who looked like Jonny was within reasonable limits. Lots of guys worked out. Ending up with someone who was Jonny was another story.

Thinking just made her uncomfortable, overly aware of the very different routes they'd taken to this bedroom. He'd bought his first place when he was younger than she was now. He got quoted in the Tribune. He'd always known where he was headed.

And of course he didn't seem uncomfortable at all, amnesia or no. He was smiling a little, like it was only a matter of time. Like it didn't even matter if he knew her from Adam.

Fuck, they hadn't really even talked. Did that make this basically a one night stand for him? Madeline decided that was stupid. He knew he was married to her, even if he didn't remember the wedding. And besides, it wasn't like they'd waited in the beginning, and the beginning had been very nice.

For him, this must be like the beginning all over again. No strings. And if he figured he might as well have sex with the girl he'd found in his condo, well, why wouldn't he? Madeline would probably have had sex with Jonny if she hadn't remembered marrying him. It didn't do to be judgmental about these kinds of things.

If he wants no strings, you can do no strings. Madeline was much better without them.

She locked eyes with him and slowly pulled up the bottom of her tank top. It took about half a second until his gaze dropped. She reminded herself that he didn't know what she looked like naked anymore, and moved even slower. For all her face had caused her much pain and suffering in life, Madeline thought the rest of her body did alright. Especially since she'd had all this extra time since graduating, and no grocery budget.

She'd done this a few times with some very exotic-dancer moves she'd gotten off the internet, but Jonny had found those a bit funnier than was ideal. So she just pulled her top off.

He wasn't looking at her like, Aah! What is this crazy person doing! He looked delighted. Madeline suddenly considered it a drastic omission that she'd never talked him into doing a striptease. If she was ever going to she'd have to do it before he remembered anything. She slid her fingers under the waistband of her underwear.

"How do you like your taste?" Madeline asked, and it came out a little scratchy.

And he surged forward and pulled her down onto the bed. So that was that. He wasn't forgetting anything important right now.

Whatever, thought Madeline. They could talk some other time.