Disclaimer: Unquestionably not mine.
A/N: Co-written with Cypsiman2 on the Interfics Forum (link available in my profile).
Please Remember Me
(c) December 2012.
1. Disaster Strikes
Anzu, Jounouchi and Honda waited nervously for news. When Grandpa Mutou arrived it only ramped up the tension another notch, until the air in the hospital waiting room was thick as custard and twice as difficult to breathe without choking.
"A fire?" he echoed when Jounouchi told him what had happened. "But how? What was he even doing by the waterfront?"
"We don't know," Jounouchi replied miserably. "It looked like someone had set up a duel there."
"But why would he go alone? I don't understand."
"Neither do we."
Anzu stared at her thumbs and worried at her cuticles with her fingernails. Guilt jabbed into her gut like a stomach-ache. Yuugi had been there alone because she had left him alone when she went to fetch Jounouchi and Honda. She should never have left. She should have stayed – should have been there with him when he needed her. The skin around her nails was tender and raw, evidence of how long they'd been waiting and how little they knew – and how the little they did know was all bad.
"I thought I saw Bandit Keith running away," said Honda, "but that can't have been right."
"Someone-" Anzu stopped. "Someone stole the Millennium Puzzle from Yuugi, right off the street. He chased after whoever it was, and … and …" She stopped again. "It could've been Keith. He was wearing a hood that hid his face"
"Hey, stranger things have happened," Jounouchi said with false levity. It levitated about as well as a titanium balloon. One that had been thrown off a cliff. On Mars.
"He wouldn't let it go," Honda said in the same half-dazed tone. "The whole frigging warehouse was on fire, and he wouldn't let it go. Even when he was unconscious from the smoke, he wouldn't let go of that necklace."
"Because it's more than just a necklace," Anzu said softly. She didn't need to elaborate. Just as they couldn't have left Yuugi to burn, Yuugi couldn't have left Yami behind. It would have been touching if it hadn't been so terrifying.
Therefore it wasn't surprising that they all jumped up when the doctor finally emerged to tell them what the hell was going on with Yuugi. They may not have known what had happened to put him here, but they could at least find out what would happen to get him out again.
Doctor Yamamoto's expression didn't fill them with hope on this score.
"Retrograde amnesia," he told them after a lot of umming and ahhing.
"What?" Jounouchi demanded.
"But he … it was smoke inhalation!" Anzu protested.
"There was some skull trauma. He suffered a blow to the head?"
At once, Honda and Jounouchi looked absolutely mortified.
"We had to pull out the nail holding the Puzz- his necklace in place. He wouldn't let it go," Jounouchi explained. "We tried to make him, honest! But he just … would let go." It sounded stupid to anyone who didn't know the full truth.
"So you hit him?" Doctor Yamamoto prompted.
"No way!"
"He fell. Forward. When the nail popped out we flew backwards, but he fell forward. He bounced off the, um, metal wall thingy." Honda made a vague gesture with his hands. "We didn't think anything of it. I mean, the warehouse was on fire, man. We thought as long as we got him out of there before we were all barbeque, he'd be fine."
"A noble idea. You're both heroes," Doctor Yamamoto deadpanned. "But I'm afraid that fall had consequences. His current condition has to do with the way Yuugi hit his head, which has had caused some trauma to his brain, resulting in retrograde amnesia, which is-"
"We know what amnesia is!" They all stared at Anzu, but she ignored everyone except Doctor Yamamoto. "Are you telling us Yuugi has lost all his memory?"
"Not all of it," Doctor Yamamoto said primly. "Retrograde amnesia is not the same as full amnesia. From what we can tell, he has perfect memories up until a certain point in his life. It is simply that he believes today is that point in time, not the current moment."
"Huh?"
"Doctor." Grandpa Mutou stepped forward. "Please explain in small words. What is wrong with my grandson?" Nobody had ever heard Mr. Mutou sound so scared before.
Doctor Yamamoto sighed. "In layman's terms, he has no memory of the last five years."
"What?" Jounouchi thundered. Anzu gasped. Honda just looked shell-shocked. All three of them were immediately running through all that had happened in the last five years. Where had Yuugi been five years ago? Hiding in a corner playing games by himself, friendless and alone, with an unsolved Millennium Puzzle and a catalogue of bruises from school bullies and whoever else felt like picking on him ...
"That … that can't be true," Anzu murmured through her hands.
But it was true. It was terribly, hideously true – which they discovered to their horror when they were finally allowed in to see Yuugi, and their friend smiled up at them without a hint of recognition.
"Hello," he said, polite and agreeable, but ever so slightly timid. Everyone noticed the way his hands bunched in the covers at the sight of so many tall people advancing on his bed. "D-Do I know you?"
The Nameless Spirit of the Millennium Puzzle was worried; after Yuugi had solved the Millennium Puzzle, he had never gone so long without wearing it and thus granting him access to his spirit. Without that connection, the Spirit had no way of knowing what was happening outside the Puzzle, no way of knowing if his partner was still well, still safe and secure. He waited and waited, something he had three thousand years' worth of practice at.
"Maybe the Other Yuugi can do something." He suddenly heard Jounouchi's voice echoing throughout the musty halls of his own lost memories, and realized that Jounouchi had to be holding the puzzle directly; had something happened to the cord Yuugi had attached to it? "Relax Anzu; you think I'd try if I thought anything might go wrong again?" Again? The Spirit's worry spiked as Jounouchi's filtered through the Puzzle. "Yuugi, I know this is going to sound crazy, but you're about to meet the one friend who can really help you out here."
There was a sudden click, like the tumblers of a lock falling into place, and the doorway connecting the Spirit's soul room with Yuugi's appeared.
"Partner!" The spirit ran for the door and threw it open, not knowing what he was about to see save that his dearest friend would be there.
Just past the hallway that marked the separation of their domains, the doorway into Yuugi's soul room was closed. Trepidation filled the Spirit, the door to Yuugi's room had always been left at least a little open before, but when he took hold off the knob, it wasn't locked.
"Partner, I'm going to come in now. Whatever's happened, I promise I'll help."
He opened the door, and saw a Yuugi five years too young crouching in the corner with a pair of old toys in hand.
"Partner?"
The little boy looked up at him. He blinked like someone who had been asleep too long. The spirit wanted to run to him, but found himself frozen in the doorway. It wasn't just Yuugi's appearance that was wrong; something was off with the whole feel of the room. His eyes darted left and right, taking in the hairline cracks in the brickwork, the overabundance of shadows in the corners and the damp coldness in the air. He was used to Yuugi's Soul Room smelling of happy memories: the cookies he and his grandfather had baked on his fifth birthday; grease from any one of the hamburger restaurants he loved to visit; that cakey make-up from when he had visited Anzu backstage at her dance recital. This room smelled like mould and old shoes.
"What has happened?" the spirit asked slowly, not wanting to startle Yuugi. If this was some strange magic at work, any false move might trigger destruction. Was this even Yuugi? The spirit reached out with his own magic, feeling out the contours of Yuugi's mind. He brushed against them, ascertaining that, yes, it was Yuugi wearing the Puzzle. This was no construct staring back at him. "Yuugi?"
Yuugi blinked once more. Then his eyes focussed. He gripped the toy in his hand so tight, it splintered, but he didn't seem to register it. Instead, he opened his mouth and screamed.
"What on earth are you doing?" Doctor Yamamoto cannoned into the room and shoved Jounouchi aside.
Jounouchi hit the wall with his shoulder, but just like everyone else, he was too fixated on Yuugi to care. "I was just trying to help –"
On the bed, Yuugi convulsed like he was having a seizure. His screams were deafening. Doctor Yamamoto grabbed his wrists, trying to hold him down. "Nurse!" he yelled.
A man appeared in the doorway, cursed and hit a blue button next the bed. As he advanced to help the doctor, a formidable woman in a similar uniform entered. The two nurses managed to pin Yuugi down while Doctor Yamamoto busied himself with a syringe. Yuugi was barely aware of them, he continued to kick and struggle, but his gaze was bleary, as if looking at something none of them could see. Though he was tiny, and seemed even tinier surrounded by the three adults, one of his fists caught the woman in the face hard enough to split her lip. She grunted and gripped his wrist so hard that his entire hand blanched, restraining his thrashing head and neck with a flat palm against his forehead.
"Hold him still," said Doctor Yamamoto.
"Is that a sedative?" Grandpa Mutou wanted to know. "Won't that affect him badly if he already has –?"
"I said hold him still!" Doctor Yamamoto gritted.
"He only just woke up!" Jounouchi protested. "You can't knock him out again!"
"What is this?" The female nurse plucked at the Millennium Puzzle. She shot the onlookers a disgusted look, pulled the chain over Yuugi's head and all but threw the Puzzle onto the floor. Only Honda's reflexes stopped it from smashing once again into pieces. Without Yuugi to put it back together, there was no way they could restore the Item if it was broken.
As if on cue, Yuugi's entire body stiffened. He stopped struggling. His eyes fixed on the ceiling. Doctor Yamamoto took the opportunity to find a vein. Moments later, the stiffness abated and Yuugi's eyes rolled up into his skull.
Doctor Yamamoto stood back, breathed a sigh and then spun around furiously. "I don't know what happened, but I do think you should leave now."
Grandpa Mutou squared his shoulders. "Yuugi is my family," he said. "I'm not about to leave him here all alone."
The look Doctor Yamamoto gave him was a blend of accusatory and exasperated. "Fine," he said after a moment, "but you wait outside this room until I decide seeing you won't trigger another episode like that. As for the rest of you," he said, looking at Yuugi's friends, "unless you're family, you need to leave."
"But –" Anzu started.
"Leave, or I will have to call someone to escort you out."
Grandpa Mutou shot them a pleading look. Just as Yuugi looked smaller than usual in the hospital bed, surrounded by medical equipment and authoritative people in white coats, the usually dependable Grandpa Mutou looked old and haggard. "I think it's best if you go home," he said softly. "I'll call you all when Yuugi …" He paused, searching for a way to finish the sentence. "When I have an update for you."
Unable to argue their way out of it, Yuugi's friends filed slowly out of the room, down the corridor, and out of the hospital.
.
