Day 50: Cafeteria (Brunch)

[selfrescuer]

Somehow, after their talk in the chapel, Elaine felt simultaneously more accepting of and more irritated by her future husband. On the one hand, seven years had clearly been good to him. He seemed more sincere and thoughtful than he had been before his disappearance, and he had a more mature (dare she say, handsome?) look to him. On the other hand

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[otnemememento]

A long moment of silence passed as Leonard considered Dent's words, the wheels in his head turning over and over as he tried to find something he could latch onto, something he'd said that could be understood. Maybe he had lost his mind, or he and this Jones were having some sort of shared hallucination induced by the layout of a room; maybe Dent was telling the absolute truth, and he really had been transported somehow to another area just by walking through a door. But how could he ever know what was real?

Leonard looked at his notes, his pen still resting on the paper, a blot of ink forming under the nib. He knew he could fully trust what he'd written and the photographs he carried: they were the only concrete evidence he had of his time in the institute and what he'd experienced. Just because I don't remember doesn't mean it never happened, even if it sounds incredible. He took a deep breath- the world didn't just disappear. He had to believe he could trust himself, even if he'd lost his own mind. There was no one else on his side.

He still faced a dilemma: take what Dent was saying with a grain of salt, or believe him for now. He wouldn't have time to think about it later and make sense of it- there was no later for someone with his condition. His eyes landed on his hand- Remember Sammy Jankis. He couldn't adjust. He didn't have a system.

After scribbling one more note to himself, he set his pen down, taking a bite of dry toast. He ran a hand through his hair, unsure of how to handle such doubt. "I probably have this much doubt every time someone explains this place to me," he said with a shake of his head. "I know I can trust my notes- you learn your handwriting when you're like this, learn to look for clues and facts you've left yourself. It's just a hard pill to swallow, this being... really unbelievable."

[unheroed]

At least the guy was self-aware enough to know that he'd probably been through this before. Maybe not this exact conversation, seeing how Harvey was pretty sure this was the first time the whole moving rooms and being transported to New York colleges thing had happened. On the other hand, unexplainable events were pretty much the institute's MO, so Leonard likely had a whole journal full of notes about things that made no sense. Trying to read all of that over ever few hours had to be enough to make his head spin. With that in mind, it was pretty surprising that he was staying so calm.

Though maybe he was just trying to put on that front. Harvey didn't know the guy well enough to know for sure, and his lack of memory made it even harder to judge. "Well, the only person you can trust is yourself," he remarked with a nod and a shrug of his shoulders. Which had almost always been his philosophy, anyway. Maybe he'd been starting to judge Rachel, but... that was different, and it didn't matter anymore.

"Don't you worry that someone's going to steal one of your notes and copy your handwriting?" Maybe it would seem odd that he was thinking up ways that people could take advantage of the man, but he still had no reason to act on any of this. It was just that the man seemed so confident in himself, so certain that he could get by despite what had happened to him. That was better than laying down and dying, but Harvey was curious as to how he stayed so certain that he was going about things right and that he didn't have to always be vigilant and make sure that someone wasn't screwing him over.

[otnemememento]

Leonard shook his head. "I'd know it if it wasn't my writing," he said with utmost confidence, as if the very idea that someone could imitate his script was something as unbelievable as the things written in his journal. "You just know your handwriting from all others. You have to be able to trust it. Anyone could write you notes, try to lead you on the wrong path, but you know you can trust yourself. It's not memory- it's written proof."

No matter what he said, there was a small seed of doubt planted in him. He wouldn't let those notes out of his sight. He wouldn't lose them. He couldn't allow himself to lose them. "You can't doubt what you know is true when you're like me. I know what my writing looked like before this happened to me. You see that writing over and over and force yourself to learn every nuance of it. Conditioning. Discipline and routine make my life possible."

[unheroed]

Harvey was starting to get the feeling that talking to Leonard was going to feel like listening to a broken record after a while. It made sense, seeing how he couldn't know what he had or hadn't said to any given person, but it still had the potential to get old after the third or fourth conversation.

"I guess you'd drive yourself crazy if you were always wondering if your notes were legitimate or not," he conceded. The question was whether or not Leonard had already passed that step. He seemed so fixated and so sure of himself that it was almost like he was reading lines off of an index card, but that wasn't something he was going to mention out loud, even if the man would most likely just forget.

"So, what are you going to do now?" he asked, wondering how much of a goal the man could have in mind when he could barely keep track of what was going on.