Forget-Me-Not
Forget-Me-Not, Ten/Rose, Adult
She smiled up at him, and gently tugged him forward, to stand so close their bodies nearly touched. “Do you remember?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.
He frowned, a wave of uneasiness washing through him. There was so much he couldn't remember. “Remember what?”
“Your name.”
He thought carefully. A name, something more than a word, something with countless layers and energies, with a resonance like poetry, like song, woven into the fabric of his being. “I...” He fell silent, swallowing hard. “I think... I think I lost it. It fell into oblivion, with... with...” He couldn't remember. “With something else that was lost.” 2197 words.
The man in the battered, ankle length coat stopped walking when he came to the cast iron gate that was almost submerged beneath a tangled layer of thorny vines. He paused, head tilting to one side, eyes closing as if listening, or remembering, or dreaming. A fine-boned, pale hand reached forward to touch the gate, and a thorn imbedded itself in his finger. He opened his eyes but did not pull back. He watched in fascination as a drop of blood slid from his finger to rest, glistening, on the vine.
He pushed the gate forward, its hinges wheezing in protest, and stepped through. Feet clad in dusty white trainers carried him across the remains of a cobbled path, surrounded by an overgrown garden. Flowers once bloomed here, and the man recognized the leafy stalks and stems of Myosotis sylvatica, Calendula officinilalis, Bellis perennis, Tagetes patula. Forget-Me-Not. Calendula. English Daisy. Marigold. The garden had once been a vivid splash of color, he thought. It must have been beautiful.
Dusk was closing in, shifting the world around the man to a deep indigo. He leaned his head back to gaze at the sky. The moon gleamed golden above him.
He couldn't remember how long he had been traveling, placing one foot before the other, dusty, exhausted, and heartsick. He couldn't remember why. There were a lot of things he couldn't remember.
Ahead of him loomed the dark, hulking shape of a house. Something was vaguely familiar about the crumbling structure, about the graying stonework that was embraced by twisting ivy, the rotted wood of the shutters that half-covered broken windows. He found himself at the front door, and pressed his hand to the decaying wood before pushing forward and stepping over the threshold.
He moved on silent feet through a foyer with an arched ceiling, stepping into an expansive and empty room. A single, incongruous white coat stand graced one corner by the remains of a fireplace. The man removed his coat and placed it on one of the stand's branches, smoothing down the faded blue pinstriped suit that fit snugly to his slender figure.
He stared at the coat rack. It was familiar.
“You came back.”
He spun, startled at the sound of the feminine voice behind him. A woman, dressed in a pink cardigan and jeans, her blonde hair swept into a messy braid that draped over one shoulder, stood a few yards from him. She looked almost startlingly young in the dim light, though the look in her eyes told another story.
She smiled at him. “You used to say you never come back. Always moving forward, never stopping. But you always end up here.” Her words were accented, slightly rough, South London. He found her voice mesmerizing.
She chuckled suddenly as he watched her. “You're quiet tonight. That's a change. Normally I can't get you to shut up.”
He found his own voice. “Right. I... er.” He peered at her. “I'm sorry. Do I know you?”
She shook her head, a little sadly. “Yes. No. Not yet. Never. Always.”
He felt his eyebrows arch upwards. “Sorry?”
She declined response, instead holding a hand out to him, wiggling her fingers. He hesitated briefly before deciding that it would be a grave injustice to the world if he did not slip his hand into hers at once. His fingers closed around her small, warm hand, and tightened their grip, not tightly enough to crush fragile human bones (because he was stronger, so much stronger than he looked and humans break so very easily, though he wasn't certain how he knew this or why he would think of her as a different species than him), but firmly enough to link them together, connected and inseparable, because that was as it should be.
She smiled up at him, and gently tugged him forward, to stand so close their bodies nearly touched. “Do you remember?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.
He frowned, a wave of uneasiness washing through him. There was so much he couldn't remember. “Remember what?”
“Your name.”
He thought carefully. A name, something more than a word, something with countless layers and energies, with a resonance like poetry, like song, woven into the fabric of his being. “I...” He fell silent, swallowing hard. “I think... I think I lost it. It fell into oblivion, with... with...” He couldn't remember. “With something else that was lost.”
She ran her free hand gently up and down his arm. He could feel the heat of her touch through the fabric of his suit jacket and shirt. She was so very warm, this girl. He grinned suddenly, fiercely, because that was what he did when the terrible weight of his shrouded past threatened to engulf him, that sense of lurking, obscured horror that made him think it was perhaps a mercy that he had forgotten. “Tell you what,” he said, rocking back and forth in his plimsolls and swinging her hand back and forth. “I'll just have to come up with a name.”
She raised en eyebrow, and the look on her face told him that she was not surprised. “Oh?”
He nodded emphatically. “Of course. What sort of name would fit me?” He crinkled his brow. “I'm brilliant. Oh, you have no idea how brilliant. And I help people. I'm sure of that. Mind, I don't actually remember helping people, but I know I do. It just seems to be me. And, I'm a little bit foxy, don't you think?” He beamed at her, and she laughed.
“All right, then,” she said. “What name will you choose this time?”
“This time?”
She just watched him, waiting. He shrugged. “My name shall be..... The Doctor.”
She laughed again, and he frowned. “It's a good name!” he said. “It fits.”
“It's a title! 'The Doctor' is not a name. It's a profession.”
“Well, of course it's a profession. But it's a name too. My name.”
She squeezed his hand. “I suppose it's a fair strike better than 'Merlin.'”
“Now, why would I go around calling myself 'Merlin?'”
“You haven't, yet.”
He took her other hand. “I've told you my name. Well, in a manner of speaking. Are you gonna tell me yours?”
Her gaze turned sad, and he wanted to wrap his arms around her. He didn't, though. “You really don't remember me, do you?” she asked.
“Should I?”
“Rose. My name is Rose.”
“Rose.” He rolled the name across his tongue. It tasted like spiced honey wine, though he was uncertain why a name should taste like anything at all. Perhaps her name, too, was more than simply a word. “Rose. Rose. Yes, you are. Rose Red. Though you're more pink than red. Pink and yellow. Rose Pink and Yellow. That's you.”
She laughed and pulled him against her. He released her hands and his arms encircled her waist of their own accord. “Rose,” he whispered, lowering his face into her hair as her hands glided over his chest, his shoulders. “My Rose.” He inhaled her scent, strawberries and gardenias and, beneath it, her, and said, “Where did you go?”
She pulled back slightly. “You remember me?” The look of desperate hope in her eyes made his hearts lurch, both of them.
He shook his head. “No. I only know you.”
“Oh.” She looked down, disappointment etched over her features. “I've been here, Doctor. I'm always here.” He felt a shiver pass through her slight frame. “And you always forget me.”
He tightened his embrace, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It's not your fault.”
He held her for a moment, swaying slightly as if to music though none was playing, before asking, “Why have I forgotten everything?”
“I don't know.”
“I've been here before.”
“You come every night. You never have any memory, of who you are or where you've been. Of me. Every night, you choose a different name. Every night, we....” she trailed off.
“What?”
“We dance.” She looked closely at him. “Do you hear the music?”
“No, I....” he fell silent. He could hear music, surrounding them, embedded in the walls, shimmering in the air as if it was somehow composed of light. It was the most hauntingly beautiful thing he had ever heard. And he knew it. Just as he knew her.
They danced, moving slowly, pressed close to one another. Time melted into timelessness, minutes and hours, days, weeks becoming meaningless. Eons were like seconds, infinity glinting like prisms in her eyes as she looked up at him. When he reached down to press his lips to hers, he wondered how he could ever forget this.
Her hands cupped the back of his head, small fingers winding through unruly hair, and he deepened the kiss, leaning into her. His hands slid down her back, touched the hem of her shirt, slid beneath fleecy material to press against the softness of her back. She arched against him as his skin touched hers, and he clutched at her suddenly, desperately, needing to feel more of her. His hand moved up the silken line of her back as he explored her mouth with his own, his tongue gliding against hers, tasting her, savoring her.
When he spread his coat on the cracked tile of the floor and lowered her onto it, she took hold of his lapels and pulled him atop her. She gasped and murmured against his lips as he ground his hips against her, unable to help himself. “My Doctor.”
Clothing was removed in breathless increments and left strewn around them as their bodies twined and thrust, slick with sweat, eerily white in the moonlight that had begun to pool about them through one window. He groaned as her fingernails dug into his back, as she nipped at his neck, his shoulder, a low growl rippling from her throat as she spoke. “Do. Not. Forget. Me.”
“Never,” he whispered into her throat. “I will never forget you.”
She closed her eyes, arched her back, tilted her face to the ceiling. “Say it again.”
He caught her mouth in kiss after kiss, repeating the words as the pressure built within them. “Never. Never. I will never forget you. Never.” He was moving in her, in all of her, through memories and thoughts and feelings that had no meaning to him, except that they were hers, and it felt so very right, and he was terrified. A deep groan was torn from him as he reached his climax, and somewhere in a beautiful haze, he knew she was mirroring him, and they were riding waves of ecstasy, intertwined as though they had always been so. “Never,” he gasped. “Never. Never. Never.”
And then, it felt like tumbling, like free falling, and then like floating gently. He sighed, pressing his lips to her throat as he gathered her into his arms, still inside her, sated.
She caught his face in her hands, stilling him, and gazed at him until he began to ask her what was wrong. She put a finger to his lips and he fell silent. “You will, though,” she whispered. “Forget me. You always do.” A smile once again brought light to her eyes, and she combed her fingers through his hair, slipping her hand around to touch his face. “But you also always come back.” She bit her lip, looking away, silent for a moment. “You're going to leave now.”
“I... what?” He frowned. “I don't want to go.”
She traced his lips with her fingers, and kissed him gently. “I don't want you to go either.”
And then everything around him began to fade. He tried to hold onto her, but she was insubstantial, like a wraith, and the walls about him melted away like a mirage, and he fumbled to hold onto her as she slowly dissipated from sight. And then, he was standing in a road, surrounded by fields and mist, and it was dawn and he was fully clothed in his blue suit and battered trainers and long coat. He could still taste her, could still remember her name... her...
What was her name?
He frowned, struggling to hold onto memories that were evaporating like the mist around him. Something beautiful, so beautiful it could bring tears and joy all at once, and such endless sorrow because he knew it was so fleeting, that it could never last. He had to grasp the memory. Couldn't let it go. Never forget. Never. Never.
What was he trying to remember?
Something important. Something that tasted like spiced honey wine.
He began to walk. Throughout the day he walked, until he came to a gate overgrown with vines as dusk began to settle around him....
She smiled up at him, and gently tugged him forward, to stand so close their bodies nearly touched. “Do you remember?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.
He frowned, a wave of uneasiness washing through him. There was so much he couldn't remember. “Remember what?”
“Your name.”
He thought carefully. A name, something more than a word, something with countless layers and energies, with a resonance like poetry, like song, woven into the fabric of his being. “I...” He fell silent, swallowing hard. “I think... I think I lost it. It fell into oblivion, with... with...” He couldn't remember. “With something else that was lost.” 2197 words.
The man in the battered, ankle length coat stopped walking when he came to the cast iron gate that was almost submerged beneath a tangled layer of thorny vines. He paused, head tilting to one side, eyes closing as if listening, or remembering, or dreaming. A fine-boned, pale hand reached forward to touch the gate, and a thorn imbedded itself in his finger. He opened his eyes but did not pull back. He watched in fascination as a drop of blood slid from his finger to rest, glistening, on the vine.
He pushed the gate forward, its hinges wheezing in protest, and stepped through. Feet clad in dusty white trainers carried him across the remains of a cobbled path, surrounded by an overgrown garden. Flowers once bloomed here, and the man recognized the leafy stalks and stems of Myosotis sylvatica, Calendula officinilalis, Bellis perennis, Tagetes patula. Forget-Me-Not. Calendula. English Daisy. Marigold. The garden had once been a vivid splash of color, he thought. It must have been beautiful.
Dusk was closing in, shifting the world around the man to a deep indigo. He leaned his head back to gaze at the sky. The moon gleamed golden above him.
He couldn't remember how long he had been traveling, placing one foot before the other, dusty, exhausted, and heartsick. He couldn't remember why. There were a lot of things he couldn't remember.
Ahead of him loomed the dark, hulking shape of a house. Something was vaguely familiar about the crumbling structure, about the graying stonework that was embraced by twisting ivy, the rotted wood of the shutters that half-covered broken windows. He found himself at the front door, and pressed his hand to the decaying wood before pushing forward and stepping over the threshold.
He moved on silent feet through a foyer with an arched ceiling, stepping into an expansive and empty room. A single, incongruous white coat stand graced one corner by the remains of a fireplace. The man removed his coat and placed it on one of the stand's branches, smoothing down the faded blue pinstriped suit that fit snugly to his slender figure.
He stared at the coat rack. It was familiar.
“You came back.”
He spun, startled at the sound of the feminine voice behind him. A woman, dressed in a pink cardigan and jeans, her blonde hair swept into a messy braid that draped over one shoulder, stood a few yards from him. She looked almost startlingly young in the dim light, though the look in her eyes told another story.
She smiled at him. “You used to say you never come back. Always moving forward, never stopping. But you always end up here.” Her words were accented, slightly rough, South London. He found her voice mesmerizing.
She chuckled suddenly as he watched her. “You're quiet tonight. That's a change. Normally I can't get you to shut up.”
He found his own voice. “Right. I... er.” He peered at her. “I'm sorry. Do I know you?”
She shook her head, a little sadly. “Yes. No. Not yet. Never. Always.”
He felt his eyebrows arch upwards. “Sorry?”
She declined response, instead holding a hand out to him, wiggling her fingers. He hesitated briefly before deciding that it would be a grave injustice to the world if he did not slip his hand into hers at once. His fingers closed around her small, warm hand, and tightened their grip, not tightly enough to crush fragile human bones (because he was stronger, so much stronger than he looked and humans break so very easily, though he wasn't certain how he knew this or why he would think of her as a different species than him), but firmly enough to link them together, connected and inseparable, because that was as it should be.
She smiled up at him, and gently tugged him forward, to stand so close their bodies nearly touched. “Do you remember?” she asked, her voice nearly a whisper.
He frowned, a wave of uneasiness washing through him. There was so much he couldn't remember. “Remember what?”
“Your name.”
He thought carefully. A name, something more than a word, something with countless layers and energies, with a resonance like poetry, like song, woven into the fabric of his being. “I...” He fell silent, swallowing hard. “I think... I think I lost it. It fell into oblivion, with... with...” He couldn't remember. “With something else that was lost.”
She ran her free hand gently up and down his arm. He could feel the heat of her touch through the fabric of his suit jacket and shirt. She was so very warm, this girl. He grinned suddenly, fiercely, because that was what he did when the terrible weight of his shrouded past threatened to engulf him, that sense of lurking, obscured horror that made him think it was perhaps a mercy that he had forgotten. “Tell you what,” he said, rocking back and forth in his plimsolls and swinging her hand back and forth. “I'll just have to come up with a name.”
She raised en eyebrow, and the look on her face told him that she was not surprised. “Oh?”
He nodded emphatically. “Of course. What sort of name would fit me?” He crinkled his brow. “I'm brilliant. Oh, you have no idea how brilliant. And I help people. I'm sure of that. Mind, I don't actually remember helping people, but I know I do. It just seems to be me. And, I'm a little bit foxy, don't you think?” He beamed at her, and she laughed.
“All right, then,” she said. “What name will you choose this time?”
“This time?”
She just watched him, waiting. He shrugged. “My name shall be..... The Doctor.”
She laughed again, and he frowned. “It's a good name!” he said. “It fits.”
“It's a title! 'The Doctor' is not a name. It's a profession.”
“Well, of course it's a profession. But it's a name too. My name.”
She squeezed his hand. “I suppose it's a fair strike better than 'Merlin.'”
“Now, why would I go around calling myself 'Merlin?'”
“You haven't, yet.”
He took her other hand. “I've told you my name. Well, in a manner of speaking. Are you gonna tell me yours?”
Her gaze turned sad, and he wanted to wrap his arms around her. He didn't, though. “You really don't remember me, do you?” she asked.
“Should I?”
“Rose. My name is Rose.”
“Rose.” He rolled the name across his tongue. It tasted like spiced honey wine, though he was uncertain why a name should taste like anything at all. Perhaps her name, too, was more than simply a word. “Rose. Rose. Yes, you are. Rose Red. Though you're more pink than red. Pink and yellow. Rose Pink and Yellow. That's you.”
She laughed and pulled him against her. He released her hands and his arms encircled her waist of their own accord. “Rose,” he whispered, lowering his face into her hair as her hands glided over his chest, his shoulders. “My Rose.” He inhaled her scent, strawberries and gardenias and, beneath it, her, and said, “Where did you go?”
She pulled back slightly. “You remember me?” The look of desperate hope in her eyes made his hearts lurch, both of them.
He shook his head. “No. I only know you.”
“Oh.” She looked down, disappointment etched over her features. “I've been here, Doctor. I'm always here.” He felt a shiver pass through her slight frame. “And you always forget me.”
He tightened his embrace, dropping a kiss to the top of her head. “I'm sorry.”
“Don't be. It's not your fault.”
He held her for a moment, swaying slightly as if to music though none was playing, before asking, “Why have I forgotten everything?”
“I don't know.”
“I've been here before.”
“You come every night. You never have any memory, of who you are or where you've been. Of me. Every night, you choose a different name. Every night, we....” she trailed off.
“What?”
“We dance.” She looked closely at him. “Do you hear the music?”
“No, I....” he fell silent. He could hear music, surrounding them, embedded in the walls, shimmering in the air as if it was somehow composed of light. It was the most hauntingly beautiful thing he had ever heard. And he knew it. Just as he knew her.
They danced, moving slowly, pressed close to one another. Time melted into timelessness, minutes and hours, days, weeks becoming meaningless. Eons were like seconds, infinity glinting like prisms in her eyes as she looked up at him. When he reached down to press his lips to hers, he wondered how he could ever forget this.
Her hands cupped the back of his head, small fingers winding through unruly hair, and he deepened the kiss, leaning into her. His hands slid down her back, touched the hem of her shirt, slid beneath fleecy material to press against the softness of her back. She arched against him as his skin touched hers, and he clutched at her suddenly, desperately, needing to feel more of her. His hand moved up the silken line of her back as he explored her mouth with his own, his tongue gliding against hers, tasting her, savoring her.
When he spread his coat on the cracked tile of the floor and lowered her onto it, she took hold of his lapels and pulled him atop her. She gasped and murmured against his lips as he ground his hips against her, unable to help himself. “My Doctor.”
Clothing was removed in breathless increments and left strewn around them as their bodies twined and thrust, slick with sweat, eerily white in the moonlight that had begun to pool about them through one window. He groaned as her fingernails dug into his back, as she nipped at his neck, his shoulder, a low growl rippling from her throat as she spoke. “Do. Not. Forget. Me.”
“Never,” he whispered into her throat. “I will never forget you.”
She closed her eyes, arched her back, tilted her face to the ceiling. “Say it again.”
He caught her mouth in kiss after kiss, repeating the words as the pressure built within them. “Never. Never. I will never forget you. Never.” He was moving in her, in all of her, through memories and thoughts and feelings that had no meaning to him, except that they were hers, and it felt so very right, and he was terrified. A deep groan was torn from him as he reached his climax, and somewhere in a beautiful haze, he knew she was mirroring him, and they were riding waves of ecstasy, intertwined as though they had always been so. “Never,” he gasped. “Never. Never. Never.”
And then, it felt like tumbling, like free falling, and then like floating gently. He sighed, pressing his lips to her throat as he gathered her into his arms, still inside her, sated.
She caught his face in her hands, stilling him, and gazed at him until he began to ask her what was wrong. She put a finger to his lips and he fell silent. “You will, though,” she whispered. “Forget me. You always do.” A smile once again brought light to her eyes, and she combed her fingers through his hair, slipping her hand around to touch his face. “But you also always come back.” She bit her lip, looking away, silent for a moment. “You're going to leave now.”
“I... what?” He frowned. “I don't want to go.”
She traced his lips with her fingers, and kissed him gently. “I don't want you to go either.”
And then everything around him began to fade. He tried to hold onto her, but she was insubstantial, like a wraith, and the walls about him melted away like a mirage, and he fumbled to hold onto her as she slowly dissipated from sight. And then, he was standing in a road, surrounded by fields and mist, and it was dawn and he was fully clothed in his blue suit and battered trainers and long coat. He could still taste her, could still remember her name... her...
What was her name?
He frowned, struggling to hold onto memories that were evaporating like the mist around him. Something beautiful, so beautiful it could bring tears and joy all at once, and such endless sorrow because he knew it was so fleeting, that it could never last. He had to grasp the memory. Couldn't let it go. Never forget. Never. Never.
What was he trying to remember?
Something important. Something that tasted like spiced honey wine.
He began to walk. Throughout the day he walked, until he came to a gate overgrown with vines as dusk began to settle around him....