"Because I remember drowning, Michael. Because there were other consequences you'll have to talk to Kyle about. Permanent consequences that meant there was a death. I don't know how. Anymore than I know how any of us survive when we go into one of our so-called comas. When I first got here, I could remember up to that morning after Max confronted Noah. I didn't know that's what happened then. All I remember was waiting on your steps for that conversation we'd never have. And then I was here. A couple of years later, I went into a coma, didn't need any food, water, IV fluids, nothing. And when I wake up, I have memories for the next couple of years. Things here don't make any sense."

Alex sighed a little. He should have known the Kyle question was going to come up. He just hadn't expected to get it right off the bat.

"No, not Kyle. Like I said, just a friend. But Kyle, I am seeing him. It's not exclusive. For either of us. Mostly because there was someone else in my life I wasn't giving up." That neither of them were giving up, but that was another thing that was Kyle's to explain. Or not. And a part of Michael's life here. The one that he'd forgotten. Or had never lived.