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It was just a day like any other. That's what Finn told himself when he woke up on the twenty second day of November at god knew what time in the morning. It wasn't a special day, and therefore, nothing special was going to happen. He was going to get up, work out, do his duties for the day, and than come back to his room to drink and play video games until he could no longer keep his eyes open.

And so far, it had indeed just been another day. No messages, no idiots dropping off gifts at his doorstep. It was, to his memory, the least eventful birthday of his existence so far, and he could not be more pleased with this fact.

Late in the afternoon, he was just finishing his shift at the infirmary, peeling off gloves, mask, and surgical scrubs before going to wash up, in preparation of leaving so that the final phase of his day could commence, the one that involved all booze and mind numbing amounts of virtual entertainment he could stand.

He was just stepping out of the infirmary when the text came. He was just going to glance at it, he thought. It was probably a birthday message sent from one of his few friends who for some unknown reason actually thought such things were important. A quick glance just to confirm that it was this and not something that really required his immediate attention, and he could continue on with his very normal day.

Just seeing who it was from was enough to make him pause, his heart skipping one painful beat before his eyes skimmed over the message.

The pause continued as he debated whether or not it could wait. In the end, he decided that he had made a promise to help, and on any normal day, such as this one this one needed to be, he would definitely do so.



Another thoughtful pause.

Whatever it was Ripley had found, it seemed like it was important, maybe even promising. A large part of him dared to hope that this was it, the missing piece of Ripley's memory was found. Hope, because it meant they might be nearing the end of this arduous journey.

Not hope that it would change anything, because that hope had had enough time to extinguish by now.

Thirty minutes, that was all the time he had given himself and it probably wasn't going to be enough. Enough to shower and get dressed? Yes. Enough time to prepare himself for what would likely be the ruination of his perfectly normal not at all special day?.

No, there would never be enough time for that.

But here he was, somehow willing to go out of his way to help his former boyfriend, on a day when he had planned on doing anything but dealing with this particular brand of crap. He could have lied, could have come up with any number of believable excuse as to why the couldn't do this today. Instead, all he'd asked for was thirty minutes.

He did a shot of whiskey before he even got into the shower.

Before Ripley arrived, Finn had managed to shower and get dressed and even pour himself another drink that was half finished before the door was knocked on. He wasn't trying to get drunk, but he was trying to take the sharp edge off of what he knew from experience were going to be painful feelings. Before he could even say "Come in." The other man had the door open, and before he could say "Hello," and offer a dry smile, Ripley had already wished him a Happy Birthday.

He almost winced. "Hey. Ya, thanks." He held up his drink as if in a toast, and then brought it to his lips for a long drink.

"So, what is it you think you've found?" He asked, getting straight to the heart of why Ripley was there.

The drink was set down so that he could reach for the folder as it was offered to him, and he wasted no time in flipping it open to have a look, eye skimming down the page.

"This is...." He frowned, needing just a moment himself to recall just which mission this had been, Ripley's words confirming what had already dawned on him.

He abruptly reached for his glass and downed whatever whiskey was left in it, before setting it down again, closing his eye, leaning back in his chair, his head tilting back, a long sigh exhaling through his nose.

"Ya," he opened his eye again, "I remember. I thought that I was going to die, on that mission, or at the very least, end up irreversibly succumbing to the infection. I sent you messages. I texted you goodbye." But Ripley would remember all of that. Apparently, it was the aftermath that he was struggling with.

Could this actually be it? Was this the moment that Creation had decided to take?

Finn shifted in his seat, leaning forward again, hands going to the table top, finger tips pressing together in front of him, index fingers tapping.

"You don't remember us meeting up that night? None of it?" He finally asked. "Because we did. Here. We met here, and we talked and....Well, let's just say you decided to risk catching anything from me." Finn's tone, with the smile that accompanied, was decidedly bitter, and he didn't even try to hide it.

He stayed silent for a moment longer, perhaps reliving the moment in his head. The happiness he had felt, when he had seen Ripley again after thinking that he wasn't going to make it back. The way Ripley had smiled at him, the relief in his voice, in his eyes. Finn remembered thinking that he would always take coming back, as long as he continued to have somebody to come back to that he cared about as much as he did Ripley, and he had thought that Ripley had begun to feel the same.

But he was really silent, because he was debating something to himself again. There was an opportunity here, to really go the distance in helping to fill the gap in Ripley's memory. Or, he could give the other man the vague details, get it over with quickly, and send him on his way, satisfied at least to have figured out what memory had been taken.

Finally, he spoke. "Do you want to go through it? Step by step? I mean, you'll have to trust that I'm keeping events as accurate as possible."

He would, as he seemed to so often do, let Ripley decide.

Finn nodded, slowly. "It seems that this might very well be it. I can't imagine you would have forgotten that night, otherwise. I know I never will." Finn pushed his chair back from the table, and stood up, motioning for Ripley to do the same.

"Step by step then. I see no reason why we can't just do it now, honestly." The additional two 'pleases' made it easier for Finn to actually want to do it, though he was still feeling a bit hesitant, for reasons that would become obvious soon enough. Ripley just seemed so eager, so excited. It had been too long since Finn had seen any amount of emotion from the other man, who always seemed so calm, so neutral, so bland and, ultimately, boring. This was like a breath of fresh air. This reminded Finn that, beneath it all, Ripley was still a person like everyone else, just one that had been tampered with.

"I mean, we're both here...." He smiled, and it was only partially forced. "Go, stand at the doorway."

"Okay, so from what I can remember...." His eye went distant for a moment, staring towards the door, and the man in front of it. "You came in without knocking. I'd been waiting for you, impatiently, I might add, so the moment that door opened, I had turned towards it. We walked towards each other," Finn began to move towards Ripley, thought not as quickly as he had in the memory, giving the other man the chance to do the same so that they could meet halfway.

He stopped when they did meet. "Your hair was wet. I think I had just had a shower as well...I don't know if that really matters. I guess it paints a better picture?" Actually, Ripley's hair was damp at that moment, and so was Finn's. The moon hunter almost scoffed at the realization, but decided to continue on instead.

"I think you were in a hurry," Finn reached down to, gently, take Ripley's hands in his, thumbs brushing over the backs of his knuckles. The memory was already making things hard, reminding him of what they'd once had, and didn't have anymore. But he knew he had to look past that. If he could just give Ripley this one thing, this last promise, he could look past it all.

He lifted the other mans hands up, guiding them to Finn's shoulders, before letting them go and reaching with his own hands to either side of Ripley's face, gliding them back until his fingers slid into the other mans hair.

"To do this..."

He leaned down, then, while also using his hands to urge Ripley upwards, his lips finding the other mans, kissing him, knowing that those kisses he remembered had been well needed, and desperate, and born of relief and desire and, actually, probably love.

If Ripley couldn't provide those things now, than Finn was going to have to, and he did just that. Each kiss, because there were several, was fueled by his desperation for his Ripley to return, even if he wasn't sure he believed that could ever happen, and by the love that he still hadn't been able to let go of. Each kiss was like a stab in the chest and like coming up for fresh air all at once, as what Finn wanted and what he had been trying to distance himself from collided.

The kisses ended, and he was breathless, just as he had been on that night so many months ago, but for a slightly different reason.

"Where was I?" He finally hissed out, quietly, his eye closed, as he tried to remember what happened next.

"Oh....right." His eye opened again. "And then I let you know that the offer I'd given you when you were examining me in the tent was still on the table. Of course, you said yes."

There was a short pause, and in that beat Finn stole another kiss, because from what he could remember, that had happened often at the time, and so it was included in the little reenactment they had going on.

"I don't mind if you want to say yes again." He knew that he had ended their arrangement, but what was one more time, really? If nothing else, Finn could convince himself later that had simply given himself a birthday treat.

An incredibly emotionally painful birthday treat.

Finn's hope had nearly run dry, but it was still there, just buried, caged out with all of the rest of Finn's emotions by an icy barrier, though that barrier had it's cracks, allowing for him to feel, when feeling became to strong to hold back. More often than anything else, it was grief that managed to seep it's way in, pricking at his heart, with slivers like glass that were impossible to remove. Other times it was anger, not warm, but hot, burning away inside of him, scalding away his sense of reason. And a countless others, though of course, the negative always outweighed the good.

But hope had it's ways of finding it's own path, however slim. Hope could worm it's way inside even after it seemed like it was lost forever. Finn might not have realized it at first, so subtle was it's touch, but hope was still there. Hope that was much like Ripley's. Hope that this might, somehow, fix everything. Why the offer to continue to help Ripley, otherwise? Why put himself through so much more than he would have needed to, had he just walked away?

When they first kissed, everything about it seemed off. It wasn't at all the same as Finn remembered, but he knew that it couldn't be. It couldn't possibly live up to such unreasonable expectations. But a part of Finn, a small part that was linked to the hope he didn't even realize was present, was determined to make it like that time, to imagine that it was, to immerse himself in it and believe. And that was probably why, when Ripley began to respond in kind, Finn didn't even notice. He just thought it was he, himself. All him. All that desperation was his and his alone.

The kisses ended, and Finn remained clueless that they had any effect at all. He kept talking, because he didn't know, not yet, and believed that he had to.

So, when Ripley spoke, one single word, Finn at first believed it was just in answer to his question. He was about to nod, and pull away, and just continue on with more words, with just a verbal explanation of what had happened between them next, when something stopped him from moving at all.

It was Ripley's eyes. It was the way those amber eyes were looking at him, There was something there that had been missing for months now, and seeing it now had paralyzed him, his body going still, his breath caught, his heart pounding, the effect so dizzying that he was barely able to make out what Ripley was saying.

It was the kiss that broke the effect, the one that Ripley pulled him into, something deep, and warm, and encouraging. It was they kind of kiss he had missed without really remembering what it was about it that he missed, just that it was different, and that it was better. It was infinitely, indescribably better.

And it was at that moment that hope didn't just thread itself in through cracks anymore. No, hope was busting down doors. Hope was breaking through barriers.

Finn's hand's were actually beginning to shake, though lightly, just a tremble, by the time that kiss ended and Ripley leaned to press their foreheads together. He let out a shaking breath, something with the hint of laughter at the end of it. And then he brought in another and held it again, his eye closed as he concentrated now just on Ripley's words, on how they sounded, on the warm breath against his face, on the press of the other man's body so close to his. On every little detail.

For a long time, Finn didn't speak. He wasn't sure that he could. His throat felt too tight, his chest constricted, his tongue far too thick in his mouth. He tried to swallow, and that only made him very aware of just how dry his throat and tongue also were.

"You..." He managed one word, but it sounded strange, so he cleared his throat, and tried again. "You said that we needed to find a better way to say goodbye." It was still hushed, still strange. His voice was wavering.

And then it all just became too much. All at once it was all far too overwhelming. It was more feelings than Finn had ever allowed himself to have all at one time in years, in practically his entire life.

He knew what was coming, then. His eye, already closed, closed tighter. His arms, which had at some point found there way down around Ripley's waist, held tighter, pulled him closer. His shoulders began to shake, and he let out a breath, a strange breath that was hitched with a sob, as Finn Connor, self proclaimed bad a** that was too ******** manly for a hug, let alone tears, began to cry.

To Finn's credit, he wasn't bawling his eyes out, sobbing, or wailing in emotional agony. His tears were of the silent, ashamed kind. He tried desperately to hold them in, but they came anyways, and each breath in was ragged, and shook. He hadn't cried. Not in a very long time. Not when his dad had died, even. He simply wouldn't allow it.

But now, it was like the barrier had broken and the floodgates had, almost literally, opened. He wanted it to stop, so badly he wanted to be able to turn it off. For him, this wasn't some kind of liberating experience that was ultimately going to make him feel better. For him, this was weakness, and it was awful.

More awful still was Ripley's apology, but it could be ignored. Instead he focused on what he had to say next, and let those words sink in. He remembered. He had already proven as much by correcting Finn earlier, but it was good to hear again.

And next, three words that he never thought to hear anybody ever say to him again in his life. But where there was relief and joy at hearing them said, there was also anguish at the pain he could detect in Ripley's voice. Finn's tears had, in this time, blissfully, slowed. What he was left with was cheeks that felt hot, an eye that was red rimmed and burned painfully, a nose that was disgustingly stuffed up and threatening to run, and an ache in his chest when Ripley continued.

Finn took in a breath, slowly. It still shook, but it was better. It was calmer. He was calmer. Gradually, and carefully, he was able to sift through his emotions, as he became almost fixated on compartmentalizing them all once more, though they would need to be untangled first. But for now, at least, his tears had stopped.

"Ripley." His voice came out a little thick still, a little off sounding, a tiny bit hoarse, but very direct, and demanding. "Of course I ******** forgive you. I know this wasn't your fault. And I..." he stopped, and let out a long breath of air, readjusting his arms around Ripley and holding him tighter still. <********, you know what? Just shut up. I just want to go back to go back to the part where we were kissing, and you were about to save a horse. Can we just do that?"

Thank you, Hattie, for that wonderful line.