Page 36 of Never Quite Gone

But for now, in the grey space between night and day, between what I thought I knew and what my soul remembered, I let myself consider impossible things. The weight of herbs in my healer's bag. The way battlefield sand felt under my knees. The precise angle of Mediterranean sun through temple columns.

I touched my empty teacup, fingers tracing patterns that matched Greek designs I shouldn't know. Everything felt both sharp and hazy – the immediate reality of my kitchen overlapping with older truths trying to surface. My wedding ring caught the growing light, and guilt twisted in my chest. Not just for Michael, but for older loves, other endings I couldn't quite remember.

The first hints of rush hour traffic drifted up from the streets below, modern sounds pulling me back to the present. Soon I would need to shower, dress, become the Chief of Emergency Medicine who dealt in observable facts and measurable outcomes. I would need to face Vale across conference tables, pretending I didn't feel ancient warnings whenever he was near.

But something had shifted in the quiet hours between dreaming and dawn. Whether I believed in past lives or not, whether I accepted these impossible memories or not, I couldn't deny the simple fact that I knew things I shouldn't know. Remembered things I couldn't possibly remember.

And somewhere deep in my soul, in a place that existed before modern medicine and scientific certainty, I recognized the truth in Alex's eyes. Even if I wasn't ready to admit what that meant.

CHAPTER 12

Some Truths

Four hours of research had led me down increasingly unorthodox paths. My browser tabs now included University of Virginia studies on children with unusual memories, consciousness research from reputable institutions, and – though it pained my academic sensibilities – several papers on unexplained phenomena in medical literature.

“This is ridiculous,” I muttered, rubbing my eyes.

The rational part of my brain, the part that had gotten me through medical school and surgical residency, wanted to dismiss it all as pseudoscience. But my hands... my hands remembered things they shouldn't.

“You're here late.”

Sofia's voice made me jump. I quickly minimized my browser, but not before catching her concerned frown.

“Just catching up on some reading,” I said, gesturing vaguely at the neglected patient files.

She moved further into my office, closing the door behind her. “The board meeting's not until Thursday. Those reviews can wait.”

I started organizing papers randomly, needing something to do with my hands. “I know, I just wanted to...”

“When's the last time you slept?” She settled into my visitor's chair with familiar grace. “Actually slept, not just dozed between surgeries?”

“I'm fine.”

“Mm-hmm.” Her tone carried twenty years of friendship and skepticism. “That's why you're hiding in your office at 9 PM, looking like you've seen a ghost.”

If only she knew how accurate that description felt. “Just... processing some things.”

Sofia studied me with the same careful attention she gave difficult cases. “This is about Rothschild's project, isn't it? The way Vale's been pushing back?”

“No,” I said too quickly. “Maybe. I don't know.” I turned back to my laptop, pulling up a safe article about hospital protocols. “It's complicated.”

“Isn't it always?” She stood, squeezing my shoulder gently. “Just... don't stay too late. Whatever you're researching can wait until you've had some real rest.”

After she left, I stared at my computer screen without really seeing it. My scientific mind rebelled against the possibilities I was considering, wanting hard data and repeatable results. But these memories, these inexplicable knowings, defied conventional research methods.

My fingers moved across the keyboard again, typing out new searches: “cellular memory in organ transplant recipients,” “genetic transfer of learned behaviors,” “consciousness studies in near-death experiences.” Each query led down new rabbit holes, each paper suggesting possibilities just beyond current scientific understanding.

A knock interrupted my research spiral. Through my office window, I could see the last of the day shift heading home, realized I'd lost hours to this search for rational answers. When I looked toward my door, my heart recognized the visitor before my mind could process it.

Alex stood in my doorway, not with the promised evidence fromour earlier conversation, but with something else – an old leather journal, its pages worn with time. The sight of it sent recognition through my entire being, though I knew I'd never seen it before.

“Sometimes,” he said softly, “the answers we need aren't in medical journals.”

I looked from my laptop screen full of scientific studies to the journal in his hands, then down at my own fingers still poised over the keyboard. These hands that remembered ancient medicines, that knew treatments lost to time, that recognized truths my rational mind couldn't accept.

With a decisive click, I closed the laptop. “Show me,” I said, and Alex's smile held recognition of how much those two words cost a man of science.

He moved into my office with that fluid grace I remembered from other lifetimes, settling into the chair Sofia had vacated. The journal he placed on my desk seemed to hum with potential, with answers I both craved and feared.

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