Disclaimer: I do not own Jak and Daxter

A/S: Hey! I know I should be working on False Smiles and everything but lately I've felt like doing one-shots and particularly for characters where there are no stories to speak of so I thought I would do one for Tym since in some ways he's quite an interesting character. He could be open to having any sort of back-story really considering he's got amnesia or something (I'm not a psychologist but I know that memory loss isn't that easy to just categorize into amnesia). Anyway I might focus more in this story on some other set of stories I'm considering doing in the future after I've finished what I like to call 'The Aella trilogy'. Ambitious, considering all the other stories I'm doing? Yes I know...

Memories, Make-Belief Daughters and Mournfulness

For Gentle Breezes

He woke up thinking about the new day. It was always good to turn to those possibilities rather than dreading what one had to do. He knew there was something terrible he had to venture down. It sometimes took him a while to remember things. It was one of the kicks of getting old. You started to forget things, even the important things. It always had so many possibilities and there were always more things to discover. You can never accomplish the entirety of knowledge in a lifetimes. It took centuries. This was what he always told his daughter who like him was always to determined to seek of the truth. As did every day go. He was always like this every day, it was simply his nature to be like this and he had always been told by his daughter that she would never have him any other way. She loved him this way. His wife always worried. She was long gone now. It saddened him still. He missed her every morning he saw that she wasn't there lying beside him. He would always give her a peck on the cheek every morning and there would be a smile on her face knowing he was still there also.

He went down the corridor and saw her there reading something as she drank her coffee. "Morning Sleepy Head." She greeted.

"Sleepy head. I just got up and its only six o'clock in the morning." He replied.

"Hmm. That must be why I'm still feeling a little tired." She groaned.

"Always better to get up early. As I always told you to get a full days work done." He reminded her.

"Yes and I always hate to remember it." She replied dryly.

"So you got anything exciting to do today?" He asked.

She blinked at him. "Of course I do. We always discover a new thing every day therefore every day is worth looking forward to." She mimicked.

He chuckled. "That's my girl."

He began humming to himself as he poured himself some coffee. He was against it at first but she had somehow been able to get him into it and now he could never get enough of it. He was drinking more than her now which in turn made her concerned about the amount he drank himself. Then again it was just the two of them so she had no one else to be concerned about. Maybe she should get herself a boyfriend then she would have something else to think about other than the machines she worked with. Not that he had any problems with that. He was proud of her. She was like him, always curious about the places where no one else went. Girls her age usually went into completely different professions and her mother was always making a big thing of it but their daughter never really seemed to care. She was more into standing out of the crowd or to put it another way she didn't want to be anywhere near the crowd. Too many people for her taste, as she would usually reply. She liked to wander off in another direction. People claimed there was nothing there or where people deemed it too dangerous to go but she was never deterred from such things. That just encouraged her. She never listened to what her friends thought. She never thought of the warnings people gave her. Perhaps that was why she ended up in the trouble she was in. What she was in trouble? How? When...?

~ (***) ~

He woke up wondering where he was and then he remembered, ironically enough. He could remember being alone and he could remember that he couldn't remember that much beyond this little island that he lived on. This island was all he had, it was the only world that he knew. Other those abominable robots he was surrounded by which he built for himself to help him with his experiments and to protect him from those damned pirates. He really did wonder whether he had much more to live for. He could remember the first time he saw them. At first he was excited at seeing someone else and he no longer felt like he was the only one in the world but then he saw their captain. There was something familiar about him. There was something about him where he felt like he was one of the good guys but then there was something else about him. Something which didn't feel right. He began to panic and started building the robots and before he knew it they turned against him. As it seemed there was something about mechanics which he had forgotten from his younger years where he was sure that would have happened regardless of him losing his memory. He blinked against the sunlight trying to escape through the blinds which reminded him of something else that he couldn't remember.

There was something else too which always acted as a warning signal. For some reason he could always sense some form of energy. He even heard the voices sometimes. He thought they were dreams or him just going crazy. That would be the most likely reason but then he heard about the problems the world was having with eco and then it started to get a little bit worrying. He at least knew there was a world out there the only problem was that there was no way he was going to be able to get off this island. The tools and electrics used to be the robots together was all that he could find on this damned island and there was no way he was going to face those vicious creatures and they were going to rip him limb from limb if he stepped out the treehouse. There was no way that anyone was ever going to convince him his own little sanctuary. His own little world even though the world was more vast than what he could see with the naked eye from the highest point on this island. There must have been something else in that respect which he had forgotten. He was sure that there was something in his mind which recalled a time when he knew the world better than most. That he had some vast knowledge about something which many people feared or strayed away from. He knew he was a curious man but he knew he could never comprehend as to how curious he was before this this thought in his mind.

He hated it when he couldn't remember anything. He hated the fact that he had a hunch that he knew something or there was something inside him that was telling him not to do something from experience. He knew it was something but he had no idea what this feeling could denote. It was the worst thing that could happen to a person. He knew that much now. He at least knew how much one could suffer without having your memories. It was always getting more and more difficult to remember things now. Even when he tried extremely hard the void was just getting blacker and blacker. He felt like he had been smashed into a million pieces and there was no way he was going to get himself back together again even if he collected up all the pieces. He was never going to be able to find himself again. Not unless there was someone out there smart enough to find him.

That would be something. In fact that that was the only thing he was waiting around for, other than death. He was getting old after all, so there wasn't much else to live for, let alone wait around for. He sometimes fantasied about it. Yet again, he had nothing better to do with his time there. He thought about there being someone out there wondering where he was as much as he was wonder about where he really was. He must have come from somewhere, he can't have just popped into existence, that he was sure of. Therefore there must be someone out there to worry about him. He thought about whether he had a wife. He even made one up once. He really was that bored. He imagined her with blonde hair, radiant smile, always cooked dinner and made it ready just in time he walked through the door. He knew they would have children. Maybe a daughter. No definitely a daughter.

A make-belief daughter. Maybe even in this past life that he had he had wished for a daughter but only had sons or had no children at all but still a wife. When you had a wife but no children you still thought of such things. He still thought about what she would be like, what her interests were, what she looked like. A daughter with hair the same colour his hair once was (he couldn't even remember that either making the picture all the more hazy), the same twinkling eyes as her mother. The same intelligence that he had and a thirst for knowledge which would always remind him of himself when he was younger. She would be the perfect balance between her parents who were so gloriously different. But she would be kind and considerate just like her mother. He would then go out to speculate the reason why he was here. Maybe something terrible happened to his wife and he was spared under some wild circumstances and landed here. There were too many speculations to dwell on that he was beginning to see it as pointless to think on such things. Maybe he took a hit to the head? However his determined daughter was out there trying to find him? She was out there somewhere looking for him but she was beginning to give up hope. Or maybe she wasn't. After all, she would be a stubborn, no-nonsense daughter wouldn't she?

He thought about these dreams as he looked up at the sky at night. He could only turn to this place couldn't he? After all, this was the only place where dreams could dwell. They could only survive up there because it was the only place far away enough from dirtied hands who would destroy or ruin them forever. It was better to preserve them far away from yourself to keep them safe. He wondered whether there was someone else doing the exact same thing, thinking about the same exact thing or whether all these things which they had been told as children was a lie. He had been here for years now. Hours became days. Days became weeks. Weeks became months. Time had become nothing, it was just a concept now which just remained with him. It was sad really, the one thing which could never be reclaimed was his only companion. And before he knew, months became years. That was the famous joke time pulled every single time people became more and more patient. It just dragged him along for as long as he was willing to wait which was for as long as it would have to be. He was willing to wait for as long as it would take for someone to come and find him. He knew, he had to believe that there was someone out there who knew about his existence. Who cared about his existence. There had to be someone who missed him otherwise what was the point in him being here?

~ (***) ~

Whenever he ventured back to an old memory it was always like going to sleep. He drifted off into self-conscious and then woke up somewhere else, almost in a different dimension, with a different structure and rules of gravity. He had to admit that was quite an apt considering, all memories that were 'lost' lay in the self-conscious and you were only able to go there when you really weren't thinking about it. It was like the incorporeal self was the only self which could go there since it was the only thing which was able to go to make-belief places. This even made him question whether all these 'memories' were merely imaginings opposed to what was once actuality. He took in a deep breath and tried to banish these thoughts from his mind. He had to be completely and utterly empty. He just had to let these things come naturally to him. He had to let the sounds, smells, touch, images come to him without him resisting all these things. He was walking through some docking bay. He could hear the whirring sounds of the engines, he sound smell the fuel and he see the flashes of metal pass him by. But he was going somewhere else. Somewhere that he wasn't to let anyone else know about. Strange he was remembering things more clearly...In fact it was like he was watching himself. He was following himself amongst the machines, computers, bodies...Wait bodies?

He could feel himself shaking all over. He was panicking and that was never a good thing to do. Whenever he panicked he always woke up again. He couldn't wake up again. Not yet, he knew he wouldn't be able to come back again once he had visited this time. He had to stay. It was going to be hard but he had to stay. His ghost self looked around in horror and then turned back to his other self. It was so strange seeing another self again, he wished he could jump inside him and maybe he would be able to find those lost memories again and also be able to stop him from doing whatever he was doing at the time. He felt a very faint connection to him but it was still very vague. What was going on? How could he be in a place like this? He couldn't understand how this all happened. How did he get to this place? How did he get himself involved in such a terrible experiment? He always knew that he would go to the places which no one else ventured to but that didn't mean he was going to completely disregard the ethical rules of scientific discovery. It acted as a limitation but just look at those who didn't regard it at all...

"Professor!" Said a familiar voice.

His other self jumped and squinted into the darkness. "Yes?"

The other voice chuckled. "I was just coming to check on the progress I hope you have everything you need?"

His other self nodded nervously. "Y-yes. Thank you."

The man stepped out the shadows. He looked very regal and tall. He had an air of confidence about him and even though the smile on his face seemed like a trustworthy one it still seemed like there was something not to be trusted about him.

"When do you think we will be able to bring in some test subjects?" He inquired.

His other self shuddered. "I'm not sure if I'm honest- Um I mean," He said hurriedly when he received a slight glare from the other man. "I'm not sure that I'm ready yet. We have to make sure that its as safe as it can possibly be-"

The other man laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Now you leave that to me. Just let me know when you've modified it to be tested on...participants."

His other self gulped and nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Good, I'll let you get back to work."

As the other man strode out the test lab his other self stared after him uttering something he couldn't quite hear...

~ (***) ~

He would always wake up again in the real world after that. Or maybe he was dreaming now? Sometimes it was so difficult to know and it drove him more insane than he already was and eventually the only way to cope was the let it go. He had to hold onto these dreams as his only way back to who he really was. Although he had his moments when he was beginning to doubt in his belief. He was beginning to think that this was too unreasonable. That he had been waiting for too long for this to be true. For too long that he had come to the point as to whether he even existed. He would look out onto the world and whether he was dead. Or whether if this was all some fantasical dream which he couldn't wake up from. He could just remember waking up on the edge of the world. That was the earliest memory he had knowing that he had lived a lifetime before that first dawn. He couldn't remember if he had another home out there. He knew it. He knew there was something out there which was once his. What did he believe in? He wasn't sure whether to believe in anything beyond what he could see. He couldn't even remember his name. He had no idea what it could possibly be. It was a sad thought really, not really being able to know what you were. For a while he thought that he was just in a dream. Or perhaps he was dead? How was he to know? He had no clue.

~ (***) ~

She was hiding something from him. He had suspected this for a while now. He knew there was no way of denying that there was something wrong with all of this and he had to find out before it was too late. It was something which had been going on for a while now and as her father he knew it was his responsibility to comfort her. It had driven them apart. He had a feeling that she might know the reason why he could not tell her anything about what he was working on. Or maybe it was his secret experiments as well? Maybe that was what it was. Maybe there was nothing to suspect from her...

"How are you my dear?" He asked gently.

"I'm fine thank you." She replied tiredly.

He frowned and turned to her to see if there was something the matter with her. This was too formal a reply for her. It was rather strange of her to just say so little as well. She was always going into elaborate detail She was never able to hide anything from her old father if he looked her in the face. He walked up to her and watched her read through the report. She looked tried. No more than tired. She looked exhausted. She looked like someone whose soul was bearing down on something which she could never speak of. The darkness around her eyes told him that it was something which was haunting her when she was supposed to be sleeping.

He touched her shoulder gently. "Darling can you-"

She flinched at his touch and stared at him. "No- No I mean there is nothing for you to be worried about."

"Sweetheart, we have always been able to tell each other everything have we not? So what makes this so different?"

She was quiet for a long time. A disturbing amount of time. It was enough time for her to make him suspect that there was something wrong. He didn't know what it would be but it was something bad enough to make him worry.

"I'm not sure I'm going to like what you say back." She answered.

~ (***) ~

He never thought he would ever see someone other than those damn pirates. He had every hope of having someone to talk to or something but then he would rather by alone than to have their company. It was on a normal, regular day when that all changed. He was sitting around when he heard voices. He thought they were the voices in his head again but then he heard two different voices which were echoing. He leaned out the window and saw them down below. A blonde haired man and some orange ferret on his shoulder who couldn't stop talking. He almost jumped up and down in the air with glee knowing that there was finally another chance for company while he waited for his make-belief daughter. However he was then reminded of the robots and knew that unless he warned them there was no way they were going to get out here alive. Before he could warn them about the robots they jumped out of nowhere and attacked. However he was able to fight them off somehow but there was something else coursing through his body. He tried to think in the same way when he heard the voices or sensed the energy and then in his mind he heard it.

Dark Eco.

He swung his legs out the window and grabbed a branch so that he wouldn't fall and climbed down the tree which stand by his home in the blink of an eye. This stranger must have a ship around here somewhere...

~ (***) ~

"PLEASE! PLEASE MY DEAR BE REASONABLE!" He cried.

"How can I be reasonable when you simply lie to me every single day!" She retorted hysterically. "How long have you been doing it? How many people have died because of your...experiments?"

Guilt weighed down his heart and his eyes were cast down to the ground in shame. He knew she was right. She was right to be disgusted with him. He knew he would never blame her for this reaction. He knew that she was right to hate him after he had done for her, this still felt like a fatal blow and considering what she had been hiding from him he almost felt for a reason that they should consider this even but he knew it wasn't as simple as that. His secret was a thousand times worse than the one she had been keeping from him.

"I can't tell you that." He replied weakly.

She nodded, she gripped the bag in her hand even more tightly. She was most certainly never going to return home ever again.

"I thought you would say that." She replied in a cruel voice.

"The only reason why I cannot tell you is only because I want to protect you." He insisted. "That is the only reason why I never told-"

"But you didn't even have to do it! Why did you agree to it? Why didn't you just turn the offer away father! WHY?" She demanded.

~ (***) ~

Finally! Freedom! The one thing he had been waiting for all this time and it was someone filled with dark eco. There was something else inside him. Something which was familiar but he couldn't put his finger on it. Perhaps it was someone he met in the life that he couldn't remember which reminded him of someone. Someone important as well. Maybe he should tell Jak? No it was probably best to keep a lid on it. He should sit there quietly and just let him fly him away from that God-forsaken island. He didn't want to get himself into trouble with anyone or anything. It was always best to keep your mouth shut about all these kind of things. He could remember that much. He never thought in a million years someone would come here and find him but he never even comprehended that someone would take him from this place. It turned out that this Jak and his ferret were the ones to come and rescue him. Not the make-belief daughter...Then again there was the chance that she never existed in the first place. After all she was make-belief wasn't she? As he watched the place disappear from view he was finally able to see how tiny the world that he had lived on for so many years really was. He knew from the start that it was a relatively tiny island but he never realised that it was that small...

~ (***) ~

That girl seemed to spark all those memories deep inside his mind. Maybe she was his make-belief daughter all along. Then again maybe it was just because she was pretty. Maybe she reminded him of someone he once knew. The make-belief daughter.

"Hello?"

The stranger look up and saw her in the doorway. "How are you doing? Are you comfortable?"

He looked around uncertainly but finally nodded. "Yes, I think this should do. Although...I'm not too sure about them pirates."

She sighed. "I know what you mean. But most of them mean well. Especially Phoenix. I know most pirates shouldn't be trusted but he seems to want to help us."

"I don't know about him...There's something familiar about his face..."

Keira put a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?"

He nodded. "Yes. Thank you, my dear. My, my aren't you a sweet girl. Just like my make-belief daughter..."

She frowned. "I'm sorry?"

"My make-belief daughter. I used to think that I had one. Or I'm sure I had one? I'm not too sure about these things. Anyway, I used to imagine one. Just to keep me company. Keep my happy. It used to make me think that there was someone out there waiting for me. I thought that would be nice..."

She smiled. "Yeah. Do you not remember anything at all?"

He scratched his head. "I know a lot but I don't know anything about myself. Strange isn't it?"

She giggled. "I've heard of stranger."

"Really?" He shook his head. "I wouldn't be too sure of that, my dear." He began to murmur to himself as he always did at a time when he was once alone most of the time and turned back to her.

"You really shouldn't pay any mind to me, my dear. Sometimes I say things which don't sound right. They don't make any sense of me any more anyway..."

~ (***) ~

It was dark...The whole place was dark...He was trying to find his way through his memory which was either a shadow of something else. He couldn't see anything. Only voices. He could only ever hear the voices.

"You're the only one who can help us, Tym. You're the only one in this field who knows enough to successfully carry this out..."

Who was Tym? He sounded familiar. He had no idea why but the name rang a bell...

The other voice sighed. He sounded older, weaker, less confident than the other speaker. "I'm not sure. I just think...Well its against the laws of nature...I think there's a reason why..."

The man chuckled. "Then why do you study such a thing?"

"Well, doesn't it seem logically enough that someone needs to understand it in order to protect others from it?"

"Which is exactly what you will be doing by helping us."

"I'm still not too sure about this. I mean...Think of all the casualties. No I ca-"

"Don't think you would walk away from this unrewarded if you help us but don't think that you will be able to walk away at all if you don't." The man warned.

"Please...Please. Don't hurt her. I'll do anything. Please leave my daughter out of this."

"Then do as we ask and we will be able to leave your family in peace."

The other voice sounded regretful and resigned. "Alright. Alright."

"Thank you, Tym. You have no idea of the good you are about to do."

The reply was not meant to be heard but the castaway was able to hear it nonetheless. "I have a feeling no good of will come of any of this."

~ (***) ~

As soon as he got off the ship he had a bad feeling. Something was coming back to him. When they walked towards the gate there was something familiar about it but they still continued walking forward. He felt like he was walking to his death. When he saw the key panel for some strange reason a bunch of numbers jumped into his head. He typed them in and walked straight through the open gates as if he had been there before.

Wait he had...

PLEASE DON'T DO THIS!

PLEASE STOP!

HELP!

The screams in his head were terrible. He grabbed onto something to keep him upright but he knew Keira or someone was going to notice that there was something wrong with him. He knew now why he built the robots. He knew why he could sense energy. He knew why...He felt the same warm hand on his shoulder which he knew was Keira and was the last person he wanted to see. She could never know. Never know...

"Are you okay?"

Tym shook his head. "No. I'm not alright, my dear. I...I know this place."

She raised her eyebrows. "You do? How? Is that why you knew how to get in?"

He put his face in his hands. "It's all my fault. Precursors, its all my fault..."