A/N: A request on tumblr that turned into a little something more. I expect the chapters of this story to be a lot shorter than all my others, since this is really just an incredibly long one shot that I figured would be done best as a miltu-chap fic. Anyways, enjoy!
.: Remember Me :.
.: Prologue :.
.: an EreMika story :.
It's been three weeks.
Three weeks since she awoke to find him sitting, right there, by her hospital bed.
Gasping.
Smiling.
Thanking God.
Eren still remembers: how her lids peeled open to unveil old friends, eyes he'd grown so damn accustomed to. Her face was bruised and scratched and her lips were chapped and pale-looking, the usual roseate stains of her cheeks no longer there. She was white as a sheet. Whiter than the bandages wrapped around her head, than the cast on her arm, than the curtains on the windows that revealed the dusky world outside. It was only 6 pm, but already the sun was departing from the sky, the whole world brimming with the impending threat of darkness, artificial lights flashing on all around to cling to some sliver of its heat.
The entire room had breathed in unison; the walls expanded and collapsed with each of her family member's sighs of "Thank, God" and "Finally" and "Hi baby. How do you feel?"
Eren hadn't spoken. Instead, he'd wallowed in the way her eyes perused the room, how her fingers twitched slightly, how her lips parted and allowed breath to slip free.
"Mom," she'd said.
"Dad," she'd said.
"Armin," and then she'd started crying.
Eren gasped. Smiled. Thanked God again.
Because his girl was awake now, she was fine, she was breathing, she was taking in a breath to say, "Hey."
Her voice was frail and raspy.
Her fingers twitched a little more.
Her eyes glazed over with tears.
Droplets of water spilled down her cheeks, then his, then everyone else's. Eren, a non-believer, kept thanking God again and again.
They all closed in around her, showering her with praises and benign whispers of "you don't look that bad" and "do you remember what happened?" and "Eren was the one who found you" and "Eren. You see? He's right there beside you".
Then, slowly, her eyes had trailed over to where he sat.
She stared at him.
Neither of them said a word.
"H-hey," he eventually mustered. "Welcome back. I've—" but he never got to finish his words.
Because then she'd frowned at him, pursed her lips, squinted her once-friendly eyes and tore his heart to pieces.
"Who are you?"
Eren suddenly forgot how to breathe.
The sun continued setting, the room stilled with an ensemble of gasps, the whiteness of the curtains and her face and her fingers screamed at him simultaneously, shrilling cries in his ears and eyes as he watched the bruises on her face absorb the usual tenderness in her expression, sucking it out of her features and he watched, helpless, as it all vanished right in front of him. There was nothing he could do. There was nothing he could think to say to her.
"You don't remember him, Mikasa?"
"No."
All eyes landed on him.
All mouths opened in astonishment.
He could feel his heart thumping away in his throat.
"You mean, you don't know who he is?"
"No. I don't."
The world grew darker.
The air grew colder.
His heart was just about ready to jump out of his mouth.
"I don't know him. Who is he? Why's he here?"
For a second, Eren thought that she'd been joking. "Oh, c'mon, Mikasa. Stop. You're not funny." But then he'd kept staring at her, and she'd kept staring back, and there was no trace of humor in her face, no trace of anything.
It was so cruel, how she'd said the words again. She'd looked at him in the eyes and said them. Cruelly, coldly, said:
"Who are you?"
And then, suddenly, Eren knew what it was to have an entire hospital building collapse over his head.
—o—
"It's called retrograde amnesia."
The ceiling fan spins round and round and round and round, pushing Armin's words this way and that in the rush of wind it's emitting. His words are like that old, nasty medicine Mom used to feed him when he was a sick as a kid. Disgusting. Repulsive. Slithering down his throat like venom. Eren's little body used to do everything to reject it, but he always drank it anyway, since it's what was best for him in the end.
That's how he ingests his best friend's words, trying desperately not to accept them but relenting all the same. He stares at the blades that reel round and round like propellers, laying on his back atop his bed, a hand thrown carelessly above his head, the other scratching up and down his belly.
"It happens with some severe cases of head trauma," Armin continues, selecting a doughnut from the Dunkin' Donuts box he brought along with him to cheer you up, buddy! "The doctors say she's able to remember everything that happened up to two years before the accident."
"So she remembers everyone but me." He's still scratching his belly, staring up at the fan, gagging at the venomous-yet-necessary medicine that Armin's pretty intent on forcing down his throat.
"Seems like it. They say she's lost the last two years of her life."
Eren sighs, closing his eyes, feeling his chest clench around the space where his heart should be. There's that imminent threat of sadness, but the careful state of numbness he's trained himself into wards it off. "Great."
"Want one?" Armin's offering him a doughnut.
"Nope." Eren doesn't even bother to open his eyes.
"'Kay." Then they sit in silence while his best friend bites into his food, chews, wipes some jelly off the corner of his mouth with his fingers. "She doesn't remember you finding her either, or going with her to the hospital. It's like you've just… been wiped out of her mind."
There's another bite into the doughnut, another flake of jelly stuck to his mouth. Eren is silent for long enough that Armin thinks he's gone to sleep now. His hand doesn't even scratch his stomach anymore. He's completely still. Completely silent.
"Eren?"
A beat.
"What?"
"I think you should go see her."
"Nope." He doesn't even hesitate before answering. "There's no point."
Armin's already halfway into his doughnut when he looks up at him and drones, "She's your girlfriend, Eren."
"Not anymore."
"Oh, come on, now. It's been three weeks! At least try to start something!"
Eren opens his eyes, only to gawk mindlessly at the ceiling.
"Maybe you can start by being friends again?"
"No, thanks."
"Eren."
He groans, covering his face with his hands talking into his palms so that his voice is muffled when he whines, "I'm not putting myself through that, Armin. It'd be torture."
"So, what, you're just gonna avoid her now?" There's a tinge of annoyance in his voice, a growing frustration, a steer away from the usually-patient Armin that he knows. "You're just gonna pretend you're not the one she's been with for the past two years?"
Eren's quiet for a moment, staring at the fan, frowning, thinking of how it resembles the endless spinning of the wheels of her mangled bicycle when he—
"No."
"No what?"
"Just no."
Armin gives an exasperated sigh, stuffing his face with more dough and jelly and sugar. He looks a little pissed, but Eren knows he can't blame him. Who wouldn't be angry after their best friend decides to fall off the face of the earth and refuse to talk to them for three whole weeks? Eren's done nothing but lay about in his house like a damn slug, reliving the torturous events of that damned day over and over and over again.
Eren's mind wanders.
And he sees people, a crowd, gathered around a broken body.
And he sees her, blinking, dazed, laying on the side of the street, her arm bent the wrong way, the rest of her all scraped and bruised and oozing.
Blood coming out of her head.
Staining his hands.
Filling his nostrils.
Her eyes shouting out fear and dread and panic. Calling his name, his name, his name.
"Eren."
"Shhh, it's okay."
"I'm gonna die."
"You are not. You are not. Don't even say that."
The wails of sirens.
The garbled cries of strangers.
The eyes that watched him and begged.
"Eren."
"Yeah?"
"Can you hold me till they come?"
"I will."
"Promise me."
"Please." Tears had burned ridges on his face. "Please, just stop."
The screech of tires burning on asphalt.
The loud opening and slamming of doors.
The eyes that clouded over. Sleepy. Hazy. Occult.
Leaving him forever.
"I didn't even see it coming. The car, it—"
"It's okay, shhh. It's okay, it's okay."
The way she gradually turned colder.
Colder.
Colder.
"I love..."
The words she never got to say.
"I..."
Her body, suddenly gone limp in his arms.
The broken bicycle beside them.
The wheels that spun and spun and spun.
The daunting prick of loss, puncturing his lungs and deflating them.
His entire life bent over.
"Who are you?"
And then snapped right in half.
"You don't… You don't remember?"
"Mikasa, he's your—"
"Get him out."
What? What?! Everyone had asked her. What did you say?
"I don't know him. Mom. Dad. Get him out."
Get him out.
Get him out.
Get him out.
Eren closes his eyes again. "No," he sighs. "I have a better idea."
Armin looks up from his doughnut, which has dwindled down to about a third of it's previous size. "What are you planning, Eren?"
"Retrograde amnesia..." he whispers. The words feel like some sort of voodoo spell on his tongue. "My dad's dealt with some patients who've had it."
"And?"
Silence.
A quiet moment for thought.
An inhale to keep on talking.
"And some of them have been able to get their memories back—"
"Eren, stop."
"—completely. They've gotten all of it back. All of it."
Armin's sighs is so heavy that crumbs that clung on to the fabric of his shirt fall down his chest. "Yeah, but this is two whole years we're talking about here. Two! And even if the memories do return, she might remember a big fight you two had before she even remembers the first time you told her you loved her. It's mind bogging. Think of it as a jigsaw puzzle, Eren, and all the pieces are being thrown at you sporadically and in no convenient order. It's going to be hard for her. Things like this take time."
Eren's not even listening to him. He sits up on the bed, staring at his bare feet for a moment before jumping off the mattress to make his way to the closet, all the while Armin's eyes are on him like a leech.
"Eren…" He pulls the closet doors open, feeling Armin's gaze on his back as he rummages through his clothes. "Eren, what are you planning?"
The hangers clink together, shrieking as he slides them over the metal rod. He decides on a dark gray sweatshirt, yanking it free and throwing it on before declaring:
"I'm gonna get her to remember me."
Armin goes silent. Eren holds still.
Wait for it.
Wait for iiiiiiiiiiiitttt…
"YOU CAN'T DO THAT!"
Boom. And there it is. The distressed squeal of his best friend after he offers something preposterous.
"Well, I'm gonna try." He slides on a pair of mismatched socks, bouncing up on one leg whilst ramming his feet into some old boots he found scattered around in his closet. He stands up straight, looks at his best friend in the eye and tells him, "And there's nothing you can do about it."
"Eren!"
"Sorry, Armin."
"Don't!"
"I'm gonna."
"But you'll only hurt—!"
"Don't you understand?!" He whips around so quickly, Armin nearly chokes on a glob of dough. His hands move about in the air, accentuation his agony. "I can't have her forget me! I can't! I can't live with that, Armin. With her looking at me like I'm a stranger, some sort of freak! Did you see how she looked at me back at the hospital? She has no fucking idea who I am!"
A cough. That's it. That's all Armin answers with.
"She's my life, okay? My fucking life." Tears sting in his eyes, but he screws them shut, shaking his head, huffing with anger. "These past few weeks have been hell for me. I've tried to convince myself that it doesn't affect me but I just can't do it anymore! I don't care what anyone says. I'm bringing her back to me."
"But..." Armin stumbles to his feet—still holding the doughnut—and reaches out to grab Eren by the wrist. "Wait! Where are you going?"
"Home," he answers simply, his fingers already ringed around the doorknob. "I'm going home, Armin."
Icy blue eyes scrunch up in confusion, the cogs of a usually-adept brain whirring as his friend tries to gauge the reality of his reply.
"But... you are home, Eren."
His reply makes him boil.
"Oh, goddammit."
And then BAM! The door slams shut behind him, leaving Armin all alone in his bedroom, nibbling fretfully on his doughnut, groaning as he runs a hand down his face and breathes out a dreary, "Ohhhh, brother."
The ceiling fan spins round and round and round and round.
—o—
Eren's footsteps squelch over the mud. It's been raining. Water drizzles over everything, enveloping him in its faint, ticklish embrace. The air is humid and muggy and gross, clogging up his lungs and his throat and shrinking his clothes closer to his body. His sweater doesn't have a hood, so his hair is damp and sticking to his forehead. He makes the trek up the small slope leading to her house.
It takes him two minutes to get there.
It takes him two more to jump over the fence, climb up the steps to the porch, and sneak around the right side of the house to find her. His boots leave muddy footprints behind him, but he doesn't care. Her parent's house is large enough to have the porch spread out to both sides around it, so he peeks in through the living room window, somehow knowing that she'd already be there. And he's right.
There she is.
He hasn't seen her in three weeks.
And there she is.
She's laying down on the sofa with the cast over her chest, staring out at nothing, and even from this angle, Eren can see the way her eyelashes bat slowly as she blinks. Her face is stoic and serious, the bruises on her skin faded practically to nothing, a small scratch below her right eye present in their place. Eren peers inside with only one eye, so that if she were to turn her gaze to look at him, he'd have enough time to dart away and hide.
From this distance, he admires her.
His eyes scan the stretches of her bare legs, propped up on the left arm of the sofa, her unbroken hand reaching down to draw circles on the floor with her index finger. He wonders what she's thinking, shattering at the thought that there is no possibility that it's him. Still, he hopes. Still, he stares at her.
"Mikasa," her name leaves his lips in a whisper. It isn't cold outside, and yet he sees his own breath fog before him. There's a chill that works its way up his insides as he watches her, wanting with all his might to break the glass of the window and just teeter right inside.
But such things aren't possible.
They're pointless. Everything is pointless.
She's forgotten who he is.
Two whole years of her life, two whole years he was unfortunate enough to be exclusively a part of, have been wiped out of her memory completely. The spaces he once filled so vibrantly have been extinguished like weak flames, blown off by the wind, carried away like nothing.
He doesn't realize that he's held his fingertips to the glass, poring over the soft sways of the cast on her chest with her breaths. She closes her eyes, dreaming of mysteries. He wonders if her arm still hurts her, how it hurts her, what parts of her body hurt the most. He imagines the spaces he'd be kissing, caressing with his touch and drawing over with his lips until she felt better. He imagines how her skin might feel, if only he could touch it. Cold and frigid, the foggy glass is a far cry from her familiar warmth.
She's forgotten him entirely.
She's forgotten who he is.
Everything is so damn pointless.
Eren think he's going to cry, but he stops himself, takes a breath breath, and blinks the tears away. He hasn't allowed himself to cry at all in the past three weeks since the whole hospital scenario, as if grieving over her loss of memory would only cement the truth deeper into existence. He'd imagined that moment so many times before: what would happen when she finally woke up to find him, to see him sitting right by her side. He thought that perhaps she'd start crying, tell him that she loved him, something. Just something. Something along that.
But it's all so wrong now. He should be in there right now, holding her, talking to her, figuring out what's going on inside her head—not looking in from a fogged up window, for fuck's sake. It's all wrong. It's all wrong. It's all so fucking wrong and it kills him, it kills him, it breaks his heart.
Her chest rises and falls softly, beautifully, gently and in all the right ways.
And he thinks he can still hear her voice. He thinks that he still hears her.
"I love..."
I love...
"I love you," and Eren knows he's such a fool. He whispers out to a girl that can't hear him, to a girl that's no longer his, and still his heart beats and throbs and bleeds in the places she once had been—in the places she still is.
"I love you."
And he'll say it a thousand times more.
He feels the tears coming again. Lacking the strength to go to the front door and knock, to go inside and talk to her, to allow the droplets to form and fall, he stands outside, staring, sticky, cold and jealous of every being that's still alive in her mind, knowing full and well that despite what Armin or anyone else says, he's going to do it. He's going to do it.
He's going to help her remember who he is.
