[Fic] Baby, Please Remember Me Once More - Part Six
Title: Baby, Please Remember Me Once More
Author: duckgirlie
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: devotion, home.
Summary: “Sorry. I know you? I mean, of course I know you, at least a bit. Your number’s in my wallet. But I don’t know you, not at all.”
Word Count: ~2200 (this part)
Rated: PG
Notes: <3 to immoral_crow for her help.
one | two | three | four | five
Arthur carefully walked into the room.
“They're releasing him tomorrow.”
“Do we have any answers yet?” Ariadne asked.
“Not really.” Yusuf pulled his notebook out. “We can't entirely rule out a targeted attack, but right now, it's looked more and more likely that this is just what it appears to be - retrograde amnesia triggered by head trauma.”
“Does that mean we can't do anything?” she asked.
“Nothing definite, no. Just... support him, I guess.”
“So, we just... wait around, see if he remembers us?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Yusuf smiled at her sadly.
“It's not that easy,” Cobb said.
He turned towards a whiteboard on the wall, and started drawing a pattern of circles.
“Sometimes, people don't regain any of the emotions for certain memories, just a blank recollection of the details. Some memories are just emotion, nothing else. But the thing about memory is, it doesn't work in a straight line. We don't remember everything, every time we see it. Lots of memories are made up of layers of smaller ones - we remember the colour of our front door, the amount of windows in our house - all separately, and our brain knits them together. Some people who are regaining their memories find their brain has stiched parts together that don't match, and they have to try and use other memories to figure out which bits go where. But Eames...”
He signed and put his marker down. Arthur continued the sentence.
“But Eames isn't Eames in lots of his memories.”
“No.” Cobb said. “And I don't know how he's going to re-create an internal timeline when so much of it just shouldn't exist.”
*****
David looked out the window as Arthur drove up a narrow driveway towards a house. There was something very slightly niggling in the back of his mind as he carefully climbed out of the car and hobbled towards the door. Arthur followed from the car, unlocked the door, and stood aside to let him in.
David walked through the hallway to the kitchen, and paused. The niggling was back. He turned to look around the kitchen again, before turning back to Arthur, who was standing unobtrusively in the hallway.
“This... isn't my house.”
Something flashed across Arthur's face. “Do you remem-“
“No, not... Not properly, yeah? It's like... you know when you order coke in a restaurant, but they just bring you pepsi without checking, and you can tell there's something wrong, but you can't always tell what? It's like that.”
Arthur smiled slightly, and David smiled back. “Plus, you have the keys.”
Arthur glanced down at the keys in his hand. “I guess you're right. Though I could easily have the keys to your place as well.”
David smiled again. “Do I need that much taking care of?”
Arthur didn't answer, instead carefully squeezing past David into the kitchen.
“The doctor said you need to eat small, spaced out meals. So you can still get lots of sleep without interfering with food, or the food interfering with sleep. If you give me a couple of minutes, I'll make you something.”
He followed Arthur into the kitchen, managed to get himself into one of the high chairs by the centre island, and watched as Arthur carefully set out ingredients and made a cheese omelette.
“I know you think egg-white omelettes are an affront to food, but you're supposed to be on a high-protein diet. I left some yolk in there though, so I'm sure you can manage to choke it down.”
There was a slight disconnect between Arthur's tone and his words that David couldn't quite place. But it was probably just another thing lost in his memory, so he didn't try that hard to figure it out. If he was going to remember it, he'd remember it, eventually. If not, it looked like he'd have time to figure it out again, if he was staying here.
“Do you have any taba-“
Arthur placed a small bottle in front of him before he could even finish asking.
“But you haven't smoked in five years, so go easy on it.”
“Thank you.”
As he ate, he watched Arthur move around the kitchen, adding and checking things off a long list in his notebook. When he was finally done updating whatever it was, he switched the kettle on and turned back to David.
“I'll make some coffee - I don't have any of your teabags around - and you're okay to have a little, but not too much. Is there anything else I can get you?”
David wiped his hands nervously on his jeans. “No, I'm great. But you... You know you don't have to take care of me, right? I mean - not that I don't appreciate it, and all, it's fantastic - but you've got shit to get done, yeah? And I just mean that... I'm sure I could figure something out, yeah? If you wanted to get back to that.”
Arthur stared at him across the kitchen. “When you get your memories back, you're going to realise what a ridiculous statement that was, so I'm going to pretend you didn't say it. Eat your omelette.”
He looked down at his plate, slightly embarrassed for reasons he couldn't quite discern. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thanks.”
When he finished his omelette, Arthur set a cup of coffee in front of him, and when he tasted it he sighed happily.
“Not even my mum ever gets it right.”
“I have an eye for details. And anyway, you didn't really start drinking coffee until the - until after you moved out. She always gets your tea right.”
He nodded, and yawned.
“There's a bed made up for you, third door on the left, upstairs. You can lock the door if you want, but it might be better not to, just in case you manage to hurt yourself again.”
David looked down at his fingers. “Um, you're not going to...try and get into my dreams again, are you? I didn't really like it, last time.”
“I promise. Not without asking you first, not again. That was just... an emergency.”
“Okay.”
He got up, and walked carefully to the door. He paused to re-adjust his crutches, and something on the wall caught his eye. There was another odd feeling in the back of his mind.
“What's wrong? Are you-“
“No, I'm fine. It's just...” David looked embarrassed. “You... you know your Bacon's a fake, right? I mean, you probably do, you don't look like you've got 10 million lying about - though if we're dodgy you might be trying for subtle - and you've no security on it, so... But you do, right? You didn't pay loads of money for that, right?”
Another odd look flashed across Arthur's face. “Yes. I know it's a fake. How did you? Do you remem -“
“No, I don't. I just know because well... It's obvious, yeah? I mean, maybe not if you didn't know much about it - the paintwork's pretty awesome, yeah? - but it's like, six inches too big. Which is kind of stupid, isn't it? What's the point of going through all that effort to get the brushwork perfect, but then making it so that anyone who knew anything about the original would spot it immediately? Kind of a bollocks attempt at forging.”
Arthur looked over at the painting for a long second, before turning back to the counter.
“It wasn't supposed to be a workable forgery. It was kind of a... private joke, between me and... the painter.”
David grinned. “That's good. For a second there, I was worried that maybe you'd just never had anyone who knew their shit back here, and you really didn't know. But then I figure Eames has been back here at somepoint, and he'd have known, yeah?”
“Yeah. He... He would.”
David yawned again. “Cool. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
*****
Arthur woke up the next morning to a silent house. Which was odd, because in all the years he'd know him, silent was not a word he'd have used to describe Eames. He'd only known David - this David, anyway, because the David Arthur first met was different already - for less then a week, but he was pretty sure silent wasn't the word there either.
It was probably all the medication, forcing sleep on him. Which was good, he needed sleep.
Arthur found himself creeping carefully through the hallway and down the stairs, trying his best not to disturb Eames. He needn't have worried though - he was in the kitchen alone for less then five minutes before Eames shuffled in, grinning widely.
“Good morning. Do you want some -“
“I remembered something!” Eames cut him off.
For a second, Arthur's mind flashed through countless shared memories, wondering which one it was he'd gotten back - which one he hoped Eames got back.
“That's great. Do you mind if I ask...?”
“It was about Ariadne.”
Arthur's mind slowed down. Oh.
“We were in... I'm gonna say Paris? Though I'm not completely sure. And we were in a café, and she was ordering something, and she had this like, totally perfect schoolbook French, so I was teasing her about that, and she was blushing and kept trying to swear at me, but it wasn't quite working for her.”
“Oh. Okay. That was probably about... two years ago. Does anything else stick out?”
Eames paused to think for a moment. “I think I felt... kind of nervous and excited all at the same time. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd have said I fancied her, because it was kind of like that, but different.”
“Definitely two years ago, then. We had... a big job. It's near when you first met her, I'd expect.”
“What kind of job? That dreaming stuff?”
“Yeah. I'd explain more, but...”
“Don't bother.” Eames waved him off. “This is good though, yeah? It means I'm not completely broken.”
“No one ever said you were completely broken, Ea - David. But yes, it's good. Everything you can get back is good. Everyone's coming over later today, try and figure some more things out. You can tell Ariadne then, she'll be thrilled.”
“Yeah?” Eames smiled happily. “Awesome.”
*****
Arthur had been right about Ariadne, David thought as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Oh, shit. Am I hurting you?”
He pulled back slightly. “No, it's fine. I'm glad you're happy. It's great, yeah?”
She grasped his hand gently and pulled him onto the couch. “You should sit, it's good for you. You know, I remember that day? It was... a week after you got to Paris, and you dragged me out to this tiny patisserie because you swore blind they had the absolute best almond croissants in Paris. We had to wait in line for half an hour, then you made me order even though you knew the owner, and then you laughed at my French.”
“Wow. That's kind of shit of him. Me, I mean. Kind of shit of me.”
Ariadne shrugged. “It was a bit. I'd been warned though, so it wasn't that bad.”
“People had to warn you about me? That's even more shit.”
“Not like... He'll kill you, or punch you, or steal everything you own, or anything. Just that you had... a way about you.”
“So... He's - I'm - kind of a right wanker.”
“A bit, I guess. No one minds though, not really. It's fine.”
David sank bank into the couch and sighed. “Right. Sure. It's fine.”
*****
Arthur looked at Cobb carefully.
“What do you think it means though, that he remembered her first?”
“I don't re-“
“Is it just that he has less memories of her? Or that his first memory of her is the most recent? Or that they're probably all mostly positive memories, and that's what he's latching on too? Or that maybe-“
“Arthur.” Cobb cut him off with a hand on his shoulder. “You're trying to apply logic to this. There is no logic here, none that we can divine, anyway. If his memory regain has a pattern, we won't know it until it's over, but it probably doesn't. It could be something completely random that's triggered this, so don't... don't get yourself worked up over it. If he gets more memories back, odds are you'll be in one of them. He'll remember you, eventually. You just have to wait.
“I know. I know, it's just...” Arthur looked through the kitchen door to Ariande and Eames talking on the cough. “I just wish I could control the order he remembers me.”
to be continued
Author: duckgirlie
Team: ROMANCE!
Prompt: devotion, home.
Summary: “Sorry. I know you? I mean, of course I know you, at least a bit. Your number’s in my wallet. But I don’t know you, not at all.”
Word Count: ~2200 (this part)
Rated: PG
Notes: <3 to immoral_crow for her help.
one | two | three | four | five
Arthur carefully walked into the room.
“They're releasing him tomorrow.”
“Do we have any answers yet?” Ariadne asked.
“Not really.” Yusuf pulled his notebook out. “We can't entirely rule out a targeted attack, but right now, it's looked more and more likely that this is just what it appears to be - retrograde amnesia triggered by head trauma.”
“Does that mean we can't do anything?” she asked.
“Nothing definite, no. Just... support him, I guess.”
“So, we just... wait around, see if he remembers us?”
“Pretty much, yeah.” Yusuf smiled at her sadly.
“It's not that easy,” Cobb said.
He turned towards a whiteboard on the wall, and started drawing a pattern of circles.
“Sometimes, people don't regain any of the emotions for certain memories, just a blank recollection of the details. Some memories are just emotion, nothing else. But the thing about memory is, it doesn't work in a straight line. We don't remember everything, every time we see it. Lots of memories are made up of layers of smaller ones - we remember the colour of our front door, the amount of windows in our house - all separately, and our brain knits them together. Some people who are regaining their memories find their brain has stiched parts together that don't match, and they have to try and use other memories to figure out which bits go where. But Eames...”
He signed and put his marker down. Arthur continued the sentence.
“But Eames isn't Eames in lots of his memories.”
“No.” Cobb said. “And I don't know how he's going to re-create an internal timeline when so much of it just shouldn't exist.”
*****
David looked out the window as Arthur drove up a narrow driveway towards a house. There was something very slightly niggling in the back of his mind as he carefully climbed out of the car and hobbled towards the door. Arthur followed from the car, unlocked the door, and stood aside to let him in.
David walked through the hallway to the kitchen, and paused. The niggling was back. He turned to look around the kitchen again, before turning back to Arthur, who was standing unobtrusively in the hallway.
“This... isn't my house.”
Something flashed across Arthur's face. “Do you remem-“
“No, not... Not properly, yeah? It's like... you know when you order coke in a restaurant, but they just bring you pepsi without checking, and you can tell there's something wrong, but you can't always tell what? It's like that.”
Arthur smiled slightly, and David smiled back. “Plus, you have the keys.”
Arthur glanced down at the keys in his hand. “I guess you're right. Though I could easily have the keys to your place as well.”
David smiled again. “Do I need that much taking care of?”
Arthur didn't answer, instead carefully squeezing past David into the kitchen.
“The doctor said you need to eat small, spaced out meals. So you can still get lots of sleep without interfering with food, or the food interfering with sleep. If you give me a couple of minutes, I'll make you something.”
He followed Arthur into the kitchen, managed to get himself into one of the high chairs by the centre island, and watched as Arthur carefully set out ingredients and made a cheese omelette.
“I know you think egg-white omelettes are an affront to food, but you're supposed to be on a high-protein diet. I left some yolk in there though, so I'm sure you can manage to choke it down.”
There was a slight disconnect between Arthur's tone and his words that David couldn't quite place. But it was probably just another thing lost in his memory, so he didn't try that hard to figure it out. If he was going to remember it, he'd remember it, eventually. If not, it looked like he'd have time to figure it out again, if he was staying here.
“Do you have any taba-“
Arthur placed a small bottle in front of him before he could even finish asking.
“But you haven't smoked in five years, so go easy on it.”
“Thank you.”
As he ate, he watched Arthur move around the kitchen, adding and checking things off a long list in his notebook. When he was finally done updating whatever it was, he switched the kettle on and turned back to David.
“I'll make some coffee - I don't have any of your teabags around - and you're okay to have a little, but not too much. Is there anything else I can get you?”
David wiped his hands nervously on his jeans. “No, I'm great. But you... You know you don't have to take care of me, right? I mean - not that I don't appreciate it, and all, it's fantastic - but you've got shit to get done, yeah? And I just mean that... I'm sure I could figure something out, yeah? If you wanted to get back to that.”
Arthur stared at him across the kitchen. “When you get your memories back, you're going to realise what a ridiculous statement that was, so I'm going to pretend you didn't say it. Eat your omelette.”
He looked down at his plate, slightly embarrassed for reasons he couldn't quite discern. “Yeah. Okay. Sorry. Thanks.”
When he finished his omelette, Arthur set a cup of coffee in front of him, and when he tasted it he sighed happily.
“Not even my mum ever gets it right.”
“I have an eye for details. And anyway, you didn't really start drinking coffee until the - until after you moved out. She always gets your tea right.”
He nodded, and yawned.
“There's a bed made up for you, third door on the left, upstairs. You can lock the door if you want, but it might be better not to, just in case you manage to hurt yourself again.”
David looked down at his fingers. “Um, you're not going to...try and get into my dreams again, are you? I didn't really like it, last time.”
“I promise. Not without asking you first, not again. That was just... an emergency.”
“Okay.”
He got up, and walked carefully to the door. He paused to re-adjust his crutches, and something on the wall caught his eye. There was another odd feeling in the back of his mind.
“What's wrong? Are you-“
“No, I'm fine. It's just...” David looked embarrassed. “You... you know your Bacon's a fake, right? I mean, you probably do, you don't look like you've got 10 million lying about - though if we're dodgy you might be trying for subtle - and you've no security on it, so... But you do, right? You didn't pay loads of money for that, right?”
Another odd look flashed across Arthur's face. “Yes. I know it's a fake. How did you? Do you remem -“
“No, I don't. I just know because well... It's obvious, yeah? I mean, maybe not if you didn't know much about it - the paintwork's pretty awesome, yeah? - but it's like, six inches too big. Which is kind of stupid, isn't it? What's the point of going through all that effort to get the brushwork perfect, but then making it so that anyone who knew anything about the original would spot it immediately? Kind of a bollocks attempt at forging.”
Arthur looked over at the painting for a long second, before turning back to the counter.
“It wasn't supposed to be a workable forgery. It was kind of a... private joke, between me and... the painter.”
David grinned. “That's good. For a second there, I was worried that maybe you'd just never had anyone who knew their shit back here, and you really didn't know. But then I figure Eames has been back here at somepoint, and he'd have known, yeah?”
“Yeah. He... He would.”
David yawned again. “Cool. Goodnight.”
“Goodnight.”
*****
Arthur woke up the next morning to a silent house. Which was odd, because in all the years he'd know him, silent was not a word he'd have used to describe Eames. He'd only known David - this David, anyway, because the David Arthur first met was different already - for less then a week, but he was pretty sure silent wasn't the word there either.
It was probably all the medication, forcing sleep on him. Which was good, he needed sleep.
Arthur found himself creeping carefully through the hallway and down the stairs, trying his best not to disturb Eames. He needn't have worried though - he was in the kitchen alone for less then five minutes before Eames shuffled in, grinning widely.
“Good morning. Do you want some -“
“I remembered something!” Eames cut him off.
For a second, Arthur's mind flashed through countless shared memories, wondering which one it was he'd gotten back - which one he hoped Eames got back.
“That's great. Do you mind if I ask...?”
“It was about Ariadne.”
Arthur's mind slowed down. Oh.
“We were in... I'm gonna say Paris? Though I'm not completely sure. And we were in a café, and she was ordering something, and she had this like, totally perfect schoolbook French, so I was teasing her about that, and she was blushing and kept trying to swear at me, but it wasn't quite working for her.”
“Oh. Okay. That was probably about... two years ago. Does anything else stick out?”
Eames paused to think for a moment. “I think I felt... kind of nervous and excited all at the same time. I mean, if I didn't know any better, I'd have said I fancied her, because it was kind of like that, but different.”
“Definitely two years ago, then. We had... a big job. It's near when you first met her, I'd expect.”
“What kind of job? That dreaming stuff?”
“Yeah. I'd explain more, but...”
“Don't bother.” Eames waved him off. “This is good though, yeah? It means I'm not completely broken.”
“No one ever said you were completely broken, Ea - David. But yes, it's good. Everything you can get back is good. Everyone's coming over later today, try and figure some more things out. You can tell Ariadne then, she'll be thrilled.”
“Yeah?” Eames smiled happily. “Awesome.”
*****
Arthur had been right about Ariadne, David thought as she wrapped her arms around his neck.
“Oh, shit. Am I hurting you?”
He pulled back slightly. “No, it's fine. I'm glad you're happy. It's great, yeah?”
She grasped his hand gently and pulled him onto the couch. “You should sit, it's good for you. You know, I remember that day? It was... a week after you got to Paris, and you dragged me out to this tiny patisserie because you swore blind they had the absolute best almond croissants in Paris. We had to wait in line for half an hour, then you made me order even though you knew the owner, and then you laughed at my French.”
“Wow. That's kind of shit of him. Me, I mean. Kind of shit of me.”
Ariadne shrugged. “It was a bit. I'd been warned though, so it wasn't that bad.”
“People had to warn you about me? That's even more shit.”
“Not like... He'll kill you, or punch you, or steal everything you own, or anything. Just that you had... a way about you.”
“So... He's - I'm - kind of a right wanker.”
“A bit, I guess. No one minds though, not really. It's fine.”
David sank bank into the couch and sighed. “Right. Sure. It's fine.”
*****
Arthur looked at Cobb carefully.
“What do you think it means though, that he remembered her first?”
“I don't re-“
“Is it just that he has less memories of her? Or that his first memory of her is the most recent? Or that they're probably all mostly positive memories, and that's what he's latching on too? Or that maybe-“
“Arthur.” Cobb cut him off with a hand on his shoulder. “You're trying to apply logic to this. There is no logic here, none that we can divine, anyway. If his memory regain has a pattern, we won't know it until it's over, but it probably doesn't. It could be something completely random that's triggered this, so don't... don't get yourself worked up over it. If he gets more memories back, odds are you'll be in one of them. He'll remember you, eventually. You just have to wait.
“I know. I know, it's just...” Arthur looked through the kitchen door to Ariande and Eames talking on the cough. “I just wish I could control the order he remembers me.”
to be continued