He looked at his surroundings as he absentmindedly walked through the park. Everything had a familiar ring to it, but that was about it. He wanted so badly to remember everything that he couldn't.
They told him he walked away from the accident unscathed, but they were wrong, he may not have been physically effected, which is hard to believe when you see the pictures of the wreckage, but mentally he was destroyed.
He had been in a coma for two years, and when he woke they had to re-teach him everything. How to walk, talk, eat, everything. It wasn't like he didn't know, but it was like his mind and body were no longer connected. From what they told him he was in America, he had gotten in a bad accident. They didn't know his name, his ID was burnt in the wreckage after someone had pulled him out. They said that it would take him a long time to remember everything, if he even could. Within a month he could tell them his first name and random dreams and memories. But that was all he knew.
They wanted to keep him there while he recovered, and he was willing. 'I have nowhere else to go,' he thought to himself 'I don't even know who I am...' But one night he had a dream about a beautiful girl holding a new born child, she was as beautiful as the girl holding her. She had big blue eyes, and soft blond hair. "Can you believe she's ours?" The girl smiled up to him, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen. He just smiled back.
He had that dream and dreams similar to that every night from then on. He didn't know why, but he had the sudden urge to go what he felt like was 'home'. "Go back home, back to her...back to your family. In Canada." A voice in the back of his head often whispered.
And he did just that. He had escaped the hospital, and it may have taken him another year to get 'home', but he did just that. He did odd jobs here and there, where all they wanted was a name and a hand. Under the table work. He lived between the streets and the motels he passed by and could afford. Food was scarce and clothing was in small supply. But he did what it took to make it home.
He was walking through the park thinking of all of this, when suddenly he passed a small child sitting on a blanket on the grass. He stopped to glance at her. She looked up at him, she smiled at him at first then took a moment to study his form. "Who are you?" She asked cocking her head to the side curiously.
He smiled at her, a small sad smile. "I don't know..."
She seemed to study him for a few more moments before speaking again. "Are you my father?" He just looked at her confused. As he studied her face more he noticed her big blue eyes and sightly curly blond hair pulled back into pig-tails. She couldn't be more than 5 or so. "I don't know him," She continued. "But I have seen pictures, and you look like him. Mom said he left, and wasn't coming back. But I knew he you would." She smiled. Before he could reply he saw a someone run up to the girl from a near by bench.
"Sophie!" she scolded. "What have I told you about taking to strangers?" She gave what he assumed was her daughter a stern look.
"I'm sorry," he said backing away. "I was just waking by and she started to talking to me, I didn't want to seen rude." The woman kept looking at her daughter, but her facial expression changed, like she was thinking about something.
"He's not a stranger mommy," the young girl, Sophie, said matter-of-factly. "He's daddy."
The young woman looked up and couldn't believe her eyes. He looked at her and saw the same blue eyes from his dreams. "Derek?" Was all she could manage to choke out.