"Neither do I." His smile is crooked, self-deprecating. "But I've got nothing but time, and you've got a nice library. We can figure it out."
"You're my prisoner."
"I'm your guest with very limited options." He drops his hand, and I miss the warmth immediately. "Now come eat dinner. We can talk about your Geneva financier and pretend we're normal people for an hour."
He turns back to the stove, and I watch him plate the food, and decide that all the terrible truths waiting to be uncovered can wait.
My mind is centered on the way he saidwe.
Like we're something. Like we could be something.
How did it get here? How did it go from captive to suitor in the blink of an eye?
He sets a plate in front of me. Some kind of pasta with vegetables and a sauce that smells better than anything I've made in months. My stomach growls, and I realize I haven't eaten since yesterday.
"Stop analyzing the food and just eat it," he says, dropping into the seat across from me. "It's not poisoned. Although now that I say it out loud, I realize that's exactly what a poisoner would say."
I take a bite. The flavor explodes in my mouth. I don’t know why this shocks me, but it does. "You can cook."
"I can do a lot of things, it turns out. I just needed some of my memory to come back." He twirls pasta around his fork. "Before I became an investigative journalist, I remember writing food pieces. Restaurant reviews, cooking techniques, interviews with chefs. It was how I paid for grad school."
"I didn't know that."
"You don't know a lot about me. Just the parts that showed up in interrogation transcripts." He says it casually, but there's weight underneath. "Which, for the record, is a terrible way to get to know someone. Very biased sample."
"What would you want me to know?"
He pauses, fork halfway to his mouth. "You're asking me about myself? Voluntarily? Without it being part of a psychological evaluation?"
"Forget it."
"No, no, I'm just surprised." He sets down the fork. "Okay. Let me think. Things Jagger Harrison should know about Jonah Doe." He taps his fingers against the counter, that nervous habit I've come to recognize. "I hate olives. Like, viscerally. They're the worst food. I will die on this hill."
"That's what you want me to know?"
"I'm building up to the deep stuff. Remember, my memory was wiped, so I have to dig to try and remember the me I was before. Give me a minute." He grins, and it transforms his face. Makes him look younger, lighter, like the person he might have been if we'd never gotten our hands on him. "I talk when I'm nervous. Which you've probably noticed. It's a defense mechanism, according to every therapist I saw before the whole 'getting kidnapped by a shadow organization' thing."
"You saw therapists?"
"I was a journalist covering dark shit. Trafficking, corruption, organized crime. You don't wade through that without pickingup some trauma." He shrugs. "That wasn't exactly great for my mental health."
"I'm sorry."
The words come out before I can stop them. Jonah stares at me like I've grown a second head.
"Did you just apologize?”
"It seemed appropriate."
"That's..." He shakes his head. "I don't even know what to do with that. The man who broke my brain is now apologizing for things that happened. This is surreal."
"I can take it back."
"Don't you dare." He picks up his fork again. "This is progress, Harrison. Emotions. Empathy. Human connection. We're making a real person out of you yet."
We eat in silence for a while. The food is warm, the apartment is quiet, and for a few minutes, I can almost pretend this is normal. That I'm just a man eating dinner with someone who makes me feel things I don't understand.
"Tell me about Kreiss," Jonah says eventually.
