Fanfic: The Memory Keeper (1/14)
Title: The Memory Keeper (A Kradam Fanfic)
Author: Radiogaga33
Pairing: Kris/Adam
Setting: AU
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Kris, Adam, etc are their own people. They belong to themselves, not to me. No claims to any copyrights, trademarks, or any other intellectual property. This is purely a work of fiction from my very idle mind. It never happened.
Notes: [Important! Please read!] Allow me to start off by saying I am super, super, super nervous about this fic. It has consumed my whole life for weeks and now, well I just don’t know. This is my second chapter fic. It is AU-I’ve altered everyone’s personal history significantly. So, please keep this in mind as you read.
Many thanks to sweet_poeia and retrochic_21 for being my second and third set of eyes on this chapter.
Okay, so here we go with the introductory chapter. Chapter 2 should be up tomorrow. I will also leave update posts about when chapters are up on my own LJ.
Comments welcome as always.
The Memory Keeper
Chapter 1: One Last Moment
Sixty years later, as he lay dying in the white house with the blue door, down by the river in Arkansas, Adam would recall again that distant morning when he had broken Kris Allen’s heart. It was long ago and far away, in a world far younger than it is today. Long before the stadiums teeming with screaming fans and long before the quiet years spent wading through the low tide in Arkansas. Decades before the continental wars and the dizzying explosion of new technology that followed. The world had been different then. Slower, calmer, less fraught with the many complexities that plagued it today. It had been a simpler world, true, but it hadn’t been so different. Then, as now, dreams were all the world was willing to give for free to poor downtrodden boys and disaffected young men like Adam had been. But today, he was just another old man, eighty seven for a moment, lying in his death bed, chasing the memories of his life. And there, always there at the center of it all was Kris Allen, the man he had loved-still loved.
The fragile old man Adam had become turned his head slowly, his weary blue eyes taking in the sunlight streaming merrily into the room. It was a beautiful day, the sort of day that makes old men dream of former glories, that makes them wish for boundless youth, stronger bones, and time. Time to do it all over again. Time to relive the joys and to correct the mistakes, to avoid the regrets. It had been beautiful like this that long-ago morning, Adam remembered, as they had all stood by the front door of the modest studio he rented in West Hollywood. Adam recalled how incongruous the brilliant beauty of the day had seemed set against the ugliness unfolding around him.
“You bet on me? All of this was a goddamned bet?”
Sixty years later, the disbelieving pain in Kris’s voice was still potent enough to hurt him, to cut right through the cage of rib bones that protected his heart. Adam winced at the memory, the bed creaking at the involuntary movement. For a brief moment, Adam was transported, twenty seven again, helpless as his love slipped through his fingers.
“There’s nothing left. There’s nothing left! You’ve broken everything!”
Adam shut his eyes against the memories, turning his head from the sunlight. The bed creaked again at the motion; this time the sound roused the woman who had been sleeping in the leather armchair by his bedside. She sprang from the chair, sleep fading quickly from her. The sadness in her soft brown eyes and the speed with which she moved revealed the truth of one familiar with the ceremony that precedes death.
“Did you call me? Do you need something?”
“Water,” Adam whispered softly, his voice a ghostly rasp in the stillness of the morning. The woman immediately filled a glass from the pitcher on the bedside table and held it to his dry lips. She tilted the glass carefully, holding it for him as he drank. A few moments later, she set the half-empty glass back on the table and settled herself beside Adam on the bed.
“Daddy, do you need anything else?”
Adam smiled up at her weakly, his blue eyes losing some of their weariness. For those few seconds, he looked a little less like a man who had finally reached his turn to die. Kristina. All his life, the sight of her, the thought of her had never failed to bring a smile to his lips, to brighten his every waking moment. Adam traced over the soft planes of her face, over her long brown hair tinged with streaks of silver. Had it really been so long? Had it really been over five decades since he’d laughed with fatherly pride and delight as her hands, her small pink hands, had reached out from her crib and gripped his thumb tightly? She had been a gregarious toddler, a quiet adolescent, a strong woman, a caring mother, and now, a doting grandmother. But for Adam, she would always be little Krissy, gurgling happily in her crib, shaking her rattle and filling his world with sunshine and hope. Kristina. Her lips were curled gently in a sad little smile as she stared down at him. His gaze caught hers and he was struck once again by the intense familiarity of her unruly brown hair and her soft brown eyes.
Just like Kris. Adam’s smile faltered for a moment, the weariness that had faded from him rushing back at the thought of the man he had loved.
“Daddy? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine Krissy,” Adam replied.
“Can I get you anything?”
Adam paused for a long moment before finally speaking. “The box. Can you get me the box?”
“Of course. I’ll be right back.”
Kristina hurried to the dressing room attached to the bedroom and returned moments later, holding a small leather box in her hands. She helped her father sit up in the bed and placed the box in his hands before pulling her chair closer and settling back into it, watching Adam.
A memory keeper. That was what Kris had called the curious object all those years ago when he’d handed it to Adam, giving the man the first present he had ever received in his life. Adam’s fingers traced over the worn brown leather of the box. He recalled how brilliant Kris’s eyes had been that evening as they sat facing each other on his bed, the whirring of the air conditioner the only sound in the quiet room. To collect mementos, tokens of important memories. Adam’s hands tightened on the box, his paper thin skin stretching tightly over his bones. He knew the contents of the memory keeper by heart. He looked up at Kristina. So did she. In the last few weeks, she had watched him rummage through the old box enough times to commit its contents to memory.
Adam flipped the catch and opened the box. Slowly, almost reverently, he took out the contents one by one and placed them on the bed beside him. Two tickets for the planetarium at the Griffith Observatory, the green ink on the paper faded with age. Two small rattles, one pink and one blue, butterfly-shaped etchings barely visible after so many years. A dark blue guitar pick. An old bottle of navy blue nail polish. Dried rose petals wrapped in wax paper. A funeral program. A handful of faded yellow post-it notes covered with words. Seven plastic buttons. A bullet. A New Jersey turnpike ticket. A piano key. And finally, a black and white photograph. Adam stared at it for a long moment. It was a picture of Adam and Kris, arms wrapped around each other, sunlight in their hair, smiling brightly for the camera, young and carefree. Adam set it down beside the other items. Each of them held a memory of the years of his life, of the man he had loved.
Adam stared down at the strange collection of items beside his body. Suddenly, he found himself inundated by the memories of a younger world and his younger self.
“Was everything just a game to you? Was all of it just for a stupid bet?!”
Adam trembled. Had he really been so young, so foolish, so reckless? In the stillness of the morning, in the room heavy with the scent of impending death, there was no escaping the truth. Yes, he had been.
Adam shut his eyes again as the memories came rushing back.
[To be continued]