“Bessie,” Stephanie was happy to see her friend. She rarely got the chance to come to her diner but once a month. She missed her.

“Steph. How are you? Who is this fine man with you? You said that you might be coming with somebody, but you didn’t say he was such a hunk,” Bessie fawned over Liam.

Liam went rigid and stepped closer to her. “I—,” he started.

“We used to date before I showed up here,” Stephanie said bluntly.

“Oh,” Bessie looked worried. “Are you thinking of getting back together? I know you don’t remember anything from before.”

“Yeah. Since he’s shown up, I’ve remembered a couple things. He made me happy back then, so I want to give it a shot.” Stephanie admitted. She hoped that he would accept her as she was, despite the changes.

“I hope it all works out then,” Bessie replied. “So, you think that Hale will be interested in the cooking class?” She quickly changed the subject

“He’ll probably sign up the moment I tell him. When are you going to ask him out?” Stephanie asked.

“Um,” Bessie blushed.

“Come on. I’ve known you’ve liked him ever since senior year. He likes you too,” Stephanie tried to urge her on.

“Maybe sometime soon,” Bessie mumbled. “Anyways, the room you asked about is open.”

Stephanie smiled and waited for Bessie to take them to the small room. “So, you two are friends,” Liam asked once they were alone.

“Yeah. I usually can’t make it here more than once a month. Hale somehow manages to get here once a week. If it wasn’t for Bessie owning the place, he probably wouldn’t bother,” Stephanie hoped they would hook up soon. It drove her nuts that they just danced around their attraction for each other.

Liam looked strangely relieved and Stephanie didn’t understand why for a moment, but then remembered what he had said earlier. No wonder his mood seemed to sour whenever Hale talked to her. “What’s good here?” Liam changed the subject.

“Depends on what you like. I’ve had most of the menu items since she took over ownership. It used to be Delila’s, but she handed over ownership to her daughter when Bessie graduated college.”

Liam nodded and guided her to the lone table in the room. She hadn’t really remembered this room being quite so intimate when she had parties with Hale and Bessie on the weekends. Bessie, Stephanie realized, had probably rearranged the room when she heard that this was a date. Crap, this was too much too soon. She didn’t even know Liam, not really. She liked what she had seen so far, but he had admitted to some of his shortcomings. Of course, she wasn’t blind. She knew that she had her shortcomings too, and at least Liam admitted to his. She admitted her worries and he obviously knew some of her past shortcomings in personality, but she was certain that there were others that developed during their time apart.

Liam waited for her to sit before taking his own seat. Liam opened his mouth to speak when the door opened. “I brought you two some ice water. Do you want something else to drink mister?” Bessie asked with an obvious attempt to get Liam’s name.

“Liam, Liam Peterson. I don’t really like drinking anything other than water with my meals, but maybe later. What about you, Stephanie?” Liam replied without hesitation, not even bothering to look away from Stephanie.

She broke his gaze and looked at Bessie. “I’m good with water right now.” She didn’t really want anything else right now. She wanted to eat something with protein. If she bothered with anything else, she would probably be hungry before the night was over, and then they would be back where they started.

“Okay, I’ll give you some time to decide what you would like to eat,” Bessie slipped back out of the room to take care of her other customers. Bessie was the owner of the diner, but she also helped seat people and took some of the orders on busy nights. Saturday was one of her busiest days, so it wasn’t a surprise to see her waiting tables this evening.

“She seems nice,” Liam said slowly.

“Bessie is great. We get along well,” Stephanie replied proudly. Bessie was successful. She was one of the most successful restaurant owners in Gavinmire. “She helped me adapt when I went to school after…”

“Right,” he looked uncomfortable again. “I’m sorry that I didn’t search for you sooner.”

Stephanie waved off his apology. “I doubt you would have been able to find me easily anyways. I don’t exactly have a social media account, and Gavinmire is a pretty rural town, despite being a college town. Everything happens for a reason.”

“Still,” Liam grumbled.

“I don’t think it would have made a difference. You only found me because of this case, as terrible as it is.”

“True,” he frowned. “I’m glad that I found you at all, but I do wish I could have found you sooner.”

“I’m glad you found me too. From what I understand from that dream, I likely would have started remembering my past a year from now. If you weren’t here when I started to remember, I might have assumed that I was going crazy.”

Liam nodded in agreement. “I wish you didn’t have to remember the stuff leading up to your arrival here, though.”

“It’s better to know. If I didn’t remember, I wouldn’t know who had hurt me before. It is always better to know what those who mean you harm are capable of,” Stephanie mumbled. Information was a tool that she could use to ensure her safety, along with the safety of her friends and all the other people around her.

Liam hesitantly picked up the menu and started flipping through it. “Lots of variety.”

“Bessie did that to help boost sales. A lot of the college students come from other parts of the country. Some of them are foreign exchange students too. She thinks that having variety helps her customers have a taste of home.”

“What would you suggest?” Liam asked.

“I don’t know. Depends on what you like and how long you want to wait,” Stephanie shrugged.

“I don’t really care about time other than the fact that you are hungry, and I assume that your friend won’t serve only one of us.”

“True, but I can work around that,” Stephanie didn’t look away from the menu. There were some new additions.

“I’ll probably go for a burger,” Liam mumbled. Stephanie looked up and their eyes met, “And you?”

“I’m checking out the new additions. I haven’t been here for a while, but she always adds good stuff when I’m away.”

“What is new?” Liam asked.

“The last three items on the burger menu, half of the noodle dishes, and at least five of the desserts. I’m glad she decided to add lemon pound cake. She usually only does that in the spring.”

“Do you want that for dessert?” Liam asked.

“Maybe,” Stephanie replied. “I’ll probably go with the Japanese soba noodle bowl.”

“You always did like trying new things,” Liam mumbled.

Stephanie looked up, surprised. “I did?”

“Yeah, kind of made it hard to choose where to take you on a date. I was never certain if I could find a place that had something you would like, because some of the things you tried were just dreadful.”

“Like?” Stephanie wanted him to elaborate.

“Mint salad. You hated it,” Liam frowned, “You avoided everything with mint after you tried mint salad on one of our dates.

“I don’t even like mint gum. I wonder if that’s why?” Stephanie mused. Maybe she hadn’t changed all that much.

“You did tend to like citrus flavored desserts, so I guess you liking lemon pound cake doesn’t surprise me.”

“The orange scones at the bakery are pretty good,” Stephanie agreed.

“So, your sense of taste is still the same,” Liam looked relieved.

“I suppose so,” Stephanie was glad something about her hadn’t changed to a stark degree.

“I think I’ll get the smoked bacon and egg burger,” Liam mumbled.

“That one is good. The sauce on the bun is tasty.”

Liam smiled and Bessie entered the room looking out of breath. “God, what a dinner rush we have tonight. We even got some big city groups.”

“Are you going to be okay?” Stephanie asked. “If any of them give you a hard time, I’ll call Hale over. He’d be more than happy to deal with any troublemakers.” Some of the people from the big cities were arrogant and others got pushy and violent when they didn’t get their way.

“I doubt that will be a problem with these groups, at least right now. Do you know what you would like?” Bessie brushed off her concern, but Stephanie knew what those groups were like. She had been in the diner when one of those groups thought it was a good idea to draw a knife on one of her waitresses when she politely turned him down.

“I’ll have the Japanese soba noodle bowl,” Stephanie replied, letting the subject drop for the moment. She would take a look at the groups and make sure she didn’t recognize any of them as troublemakers before she left with Liam. Liam provided his order and they waited in awkward silence.

“Big city troublemakers?” Liam asked.

“Yeah, some people come to a college town expecting it to be party central and are disappointed when the parties are relatively tame. Some annoyingly drunk people tend to cause trouble when they don’t get their way on certain things.”

“Things like,” Liam asked.

“A waitress turned down one guy and he drew a knife on her. Hale went a little over the top with the arrest when he took a swipe at Bessie. Then there are the ones who start fist fights with other patrons like Bessie’s is a bar or something. Weekends tend to be the worst.”

“Right,” Liam looked upset for a moment.

“Oh, come on. Bessie seems to think it will be okay this time. Let’s just enjoy ourselves. I’ll do a quick check as we leave to make sure Bessie is okay and I’ll call Hale to let him know if anything seems fishy,” Stephanie sighed. She wouldn’t let her date be ruined by this. It was a date after all. Her first date with Liam since they met again, and the first date with him that she remembered. She was happy that they hadn’t needed to wait for the shard to be out of the way, especially when she had no idea how long that would take.

“All right,” he still looked uncomfortable. “Do you mind if I check the groups out before you leave the room?”

“Sure,” Stephanie frowned. He sure was protective. “It will be fine though. Hale can handle anybody who tries to start anything here.”

Liam sighed, but then his shoulder’s relaxed and he looked around the room. “So, where do we want to start. I’d love to get to know all about what has happened since you arrived in this town.”

“Well,” Stephanie started. “At first it wasn’t that great.” That was an understatement. It had been terrible. Isiah had adopted her because he thought she would be safest with him and his family as opposed in the system. He was right, of course, especially if Liam was right about her captors. They might have been able to get ahold of her again if she had been put into foster care. Liam might have never found her either, so it was good that she had stayed put. The nightmares were terrible. She hadn’t remembered them, but she woke up barely able to talk. The doctors and her therapist at the time weren’t able to help her remember the terrible nightmares or anything at all. It was lucky that she had knowledge of impersonal things. Otherwise she would have never been able to function in society. She wouldn’t have been able to go to school, or college.

Liam seemed to notice her discomfort with the subject and asked, “And after that?”

“Well, Hale is the one who found me in the woods, so he came around Isiah’s place a lot. A few months after everything died down, he managed to convince me to enroll in classes at the high school. Isiah and Carmen were encouraging, as were their children. They helped me study until they got accepted into colleges out of state or got job offers. We still meet when they come into town a few times a year.”

“Why did you decide to become a detective?” Liam asked. “A homicide detective no less?”

“I wanted to help people,” Stephanie replied. Liam looked confused, “It isn’t the dead I’m trying to help. It’s too late to help them, though justice is important to me as well. Sometimes murderers mean harm to more than one person. If I can catch a murderer before they can hurt anybody else, I have helped the other targets and their families.”

Liam smiled. “That’s much more noble than my reason for joining the API. I only joined to find you. I figured that I would be one of the first people they told since you were my soul mate, not to mention the travel associated with the job. I always looked for you in the towns I visited for work, and when I had time off, I would search other towns as well.”

He had put his life on hold to find her. “What had you wanted to do before I disappeared?”

“If you would have stayed with the API, I probably would have joined anyways, but I probably would have transferred to a different department than the one I’m in. Mobile threats are a problem, but usually API agents stick to their districts if they aren’t assigned to the national or international divisions.”

So, his actions still revolved around her. She didn’t like it. She didn’t want to control him in any way, “What about before we met?”

“I still would have joined the API. A lot of paranormals do in some capacity. I am a relatively good fighter, shards are a little difficult to deal with, but I can handle a lot of other monsters on my own or with Aiden,” Liam replied.

“Good,” Stephanie murmured and then froze as she realized she spoke aloud. “I was worried that I had forced you into this type of job.”

Liam snorted, “No, but after I found out that the API was terrible at keeping you safe during the missions they forced you to join, my opinion of them soured. I had thought that a patrol job would have suited me, and I could help with a few full-scale missions a month if it was necessary. I was furious when you came back from that first mission having overused your abilities and being hurt on top of it. When you said that it was normal, I nearly lost it. I didn’t like it up until the day you disappeared.”

Stephanie frowned. She wondered if the API had really just allowed her to get hurt or if she had done what she always did and the other agents with her just weren’t able to stop her from being a danger magnet. “Are you certain that it was them who let me get hurt or me just being me?”

“It was their fault,” Liam said sharply. “They never sent enough agents with you, and they were responsible for your safety since you were their ward. They abused your power while you were still a minor. Abilities usually don’t even stabilize before adulthood, so it was very reckless of them. It kept happening again and again. They could have made changes, but they didn’t. That is just inexcusable.”