Yesterday's Gone: Season Three (THE POST-APOCALYPTIC SERIAL THRILLER)

managed to avoid Will during the past two days, and Will was scheduled for his weekly meeting with Sullivan which usually ran longer than it was supposed to.
    The stage was set, but doubt began to lay seeds in Boricio’s head. He tried not to allow it to show, however. If he let his uncertainty show, Rose would get spooked.
    It wasn’t doubt so much that the serum would work. He had faith that it would, even if it had some slight side effects as it had with Luca.
    But, he wondered, was it fair to inflict those side effects on Rose? What if she teleported to another world like Luca had? She’d be terrified. Or worse, what if she teleported into the middle of a highway at rush hour or something? While Luca had seemed somewhat excited about his new ability, Rose might not see it as a gift, but rather a curse.
    So, Boricio was forced to consider if the risk was worth the reward.
    Was her life truly so miserable now that it wouldn’t get better in time?
    Am I doing this to help her or am I doing it out of selfishness to have my old Rose back?
    The sting of the question caused Boricio to look down at the floor before meeting her eyes again.
    Rose’s eyes seemed tiny, silent, and slightly sad, even though they appeared to be missing any true recognition of the men.
    She stared at both Boricio and Williams, though mostly Williams, as he took her vitals and ran through every necessary precaution to ensure that her fragile body was aptly prepped to accept the serum he had spent the last 32 hours preparing.
    “Are you ready?” Williams turned to Boricio.
    Boricio nodded. “Sure thing, Doc. Can I just have a few minutes alone with her before we get started?”
    Williams nodded, said, “Of course,” then slipped from her room.
    Boricio turned back to Rose. “Hi there,” he said.
    She half-smiled, then said, “Hi.”
    She didn’t sound nearly as uncertain of him as she had been on other days. Something was quiet, but undeniably warmer inside her simple greeting. Perhaps she was remembering more. Or maybe just getting better at faking the responses people expected so she wouldn’t disappoint them.
    “What’s happening?” she asked.
    Boricio smiled, thrilled to hear Rose stringing two words together into a simple question, especially with the genuine curiosity behind it, minutes before she was about to receive the first drops of her certain cure.
    “We’re going to make you better now,” Boricio promised.
    “What’s wrong with me?”
    Like every other time Rose had asked that question, Boricio felt something horribly blunt punching a hole through the center of his heart. He wasn’t sure how many times Rose had asked him already, but he hated the something inside her that wasn’t allowing her to remember his answer. He said, “Nothing’s wrong with you, Sweet Rose. You’re just having a hard time remembering a few things.” He paused, then added, “Like you and me, for example.”
    “I remember you,” she said.
    His heart dropped so suddenly, Boricio felt as though he was stomping on its beat. Rose hadn’t said anything like that since the accident, not at least without him having spent hours reminding her who he was and getting only snippets back.
    “You do?” he asked, unable to hide his excitement.
    She added, “At least I sorta do.”
    “What do you remember?”
    “Water, um … boats, … um, pasta, … and you.” She paused for 30 seconds or so, though each one felt like more than its share of forever, while she tried to turn a second thought into another full sentence, but couldn’t get the words to tumble from her mouth in any sort of logical order.
    Boricio stared at her hard-working face, twisting in concentration as she tried to pull something from her memory’s depths. Her eyes said she found something, but its weight must have been too heavy, because her lips seemed to lose it a second before her eyes returned to their usual vacancy.
    Boricio pulled Rose’s hand into the sandwich of his palms, wanting to weep when she didn’t pull it away like had been doing recently. She held his hand like she held his eyes, and for the first time seemed perfectly unafraid.
    Boricio didn’t care that he was bald and scarred and ugly as an angry action figure. Fuck the world and all the haters in it. A flawless face was pocked with its own sort of flaws, anyway. The only reason Boricio dripped a drop of care about how he looked was that he couldn’t stand looking nothing like the man who used