A/N: Hello and welcome to my first AU fic! This story takes place in 2011, which you'll be able to tell as you read this chapter. Events in the story happen as they have this year, and most places mentioned, such as hotels and regions of New York and cities in eastern Japan, exist in reality. Some do not (at least to my knowledge), and needed to be made up for the sake of the story. Take this story as essentially present-day with a bit of artistic license.

Please read, enjoy and review. I appreciate all criticisms and comments.
-picimadar

Forget Me Not
Chapter 1


"Dear Heero,

I can't believe you're seeing Japan! You're so lucky… I still have no idea what school would take me, with my grades. I'm still hoping for Columbia… It leaves me far away from you, but I loathe thinking of leaving my beloved Manhattan. Ah, well, no sense worrying now. Don't worry about the distance. You worry too much about everything else, already. You'll be able to visit during holidays, and who knows where I'll go to school? It's a great chance for us both to see the world, and think of all the stuff we'll have to tell each other! I'm excited about this whole letter-writing thing too…. I mean, who even writes letters anymore? We should definitely keep them and show them off when we're old.

I put in a few pictures of me and the girls for you to put up in your office and your new place. I hope you like them… we should photo-edit you into some later! There's a shot of your favorite perfume of mine on here. I don't know if it'll last over the air-mail trip, but it was worth the try. I miss you, but I'm so, so proud of you, and I know your dad would have been, too.

I know you dearly love to fret, but rest assured, everything's fine. My mom and dad are about to leave on vacation. Apparently they didn't get enough of gallivanting around Europe post-college and want to resume now. I wish I could go with them, but I'm stuck here, helping take care of the business and working on my application essays. Emily and I are going to see Madama Butterfly at Carnegie next week. I know how much you hate the opera, so I'm going to have to get a season pass while you're away and soak up all I can.

Don't you dare worry about me, I'll be just fine, I promise. You better write me a good letter telling me everything about your new place!

Love and miss you,

Relena


My head felt like someone had doused my hair in gasoline and lit it on fire. Like the fire was slowly tingling all along my scalp, and somehow the smoke was finding its way up my ear and into my brain cavity, inescapable fog making it impossible to think of anything but the pain and burning sensation running almost down to my spine. Eventually the fog seemed to clear, and I became gradually aware of a faint beeping next to my ear: a heart-rate monitor. Suddenly, everything became clear: the sanitized smell, the beeping, the stiff bed I laid in, all of them told me I was in the hospital, but having no idea why, I decided to try and open my eyes.

It was a mistake. The bright lights beaming of what I could see of the white walls blinded me, the light reaching the back of my eyes and multiplying the pain behind them tenfold. Groaning, I closed them again, grimacing, and the room became a flurry of activity.

"Oh my god, he's up. Dude! Welcome back!" a seemingly familiar voice said, but someone clearly stopped him from trying to wake me further.

"Mr. Maxwell, stop. He's not even ready to open his eyes yet. Do me a favor and go call the nurse, alright? I'll talk to him and make sure he's ready for conversation." A voice I definitely hadn't heard before lead to the other man groaning before he left the room. Footsteps approached my bed, and I could practically see the lights dim through my eyelids. "You should be able to open your eyes, now," the voice told me calmly, and I cracked them open again, bracing myself. My vision was blurry, and I momentarily panicked, my abs seizing as I tried to sit up.

"Whoa, whoa!" The man pushed against me, keeping me reclined in the bed. "Just calm down. Your vision will come back once you keep your eyes open longer. Don't get too anxious." I soon realized my visitor was a doctor, a young man with blond hair and clear blue eyes, and he was smiling at me, somehow looking grave at the same time. "Alright, let's get down to it. You've had a bad head injury, I'm afraid, on top of some other bruising." Sitting down on a nearby stool, the young man took out a clipboard and prepared to write. "You were one of the luckier ones. You're currently at Hiramashi General Hospital being treated for your head, which is why I'm here. My name's Dr. Quatre Winner, I'm a neurologist and psychologist here at the hospital. I need to ask you some questions. Can you handle that?"

"How did I get here?" I croaked, my lungs aching and throat burning dry, as I looked around the room. Luckier? Didn't fucking feel like it.

"There was a massive earthquake on March 11, 2011. That and the aftershocks destroyed a lot of the east coast, including the office building you were working in. Fortunately they were able to dig you out, but you sustained some pretty rough injuries. You've been in a coma for the past six weeks."

Six weeks seemed like an eternity. "You couldn't wake me up?"

Quatre shook his head. "We medically induced it for the second half to give your brain and skull more of a chance to heal. We were concerned if you got going again you wouldn't rest it enough. Apparently you're quite the workaholic." He smiled again, that half-smile affecting the corners of his mouth.

A workaholic? An office? An earthquake? What in the hell was his guy talking about? I looked past him as I heard footsteps coming up the hall, and the nurse along with, I assumed, the first speaker came back into the room.

"Hey, dude! Good to see you finally came to! Had me worried for a while. How you feeling?" If it weren't for the tone of his voice, I might have thought he was a woman, his long hair plaited into a thick braid, falling down his back.

"Mr. Maxwell, please. Not yet. I'm not finished with my initial evaluation." Looking chastised, the man named Duo Maxwell threw himself into a chair in the corner of the room, putting his feet up on the low table in front of him and crossing his arms. It reminded me of watching a child who's been told to wait their turn. "Thank you. Now, why don't you tell me the last thing you remember?"

It was a heavier loaded question than I had realized. The last thing I remembered…. Why couldn't I remember anything? Think, I practically begged myself. Remember something.

"It's okay if you can't think of anything right away. You might have some local amnesia… anything directly before the time of your injury might take a while to come back." His words were comforting, but Dr. Winner's furious writing told another story. Looked over and Duo was sitting on the edge of his seat now, staring at me intensely, and I tried harder to remember something.

Just as I came to the edge of the brain-fog enveloping my thoughts, a searing pain flashed between my temples, and I shouted out, clapping my hands to my head in shock. "Okay, okay, enough. Stop. Alright, Nurse, I need you to push sedative now." Dr. Winner took one of my hands, and I opened my eyes through the pain and looked at him, seething. "We're going to put you back under, but I need you to answer me this: What is your name?"

Such a basic question. A question that children have known since infancy, and I simply had no answer. "I don't know," I gritted out, and I felt my eyelids grow heavy.

The last I saw of Quatre he was frowning, watching the medication work until I felt tired, my eyes dropping closed, my arms growing heavy at my sides, but I didn't fall asleep immediately, instead listening to his conversation with Mr. Maxwell.

"He can't even remember his name? What in the hell injury is that?" he asked, the chair scraping across the floor as he stood up, his steps heavy as he approached my bed. "What can we do for him? You said keeping him under would help fix him."

"There's nothing I can do, Mr. Maxwell. It could just be that he wasn't conscious long enough to regain many tangible memories, but I'm not sure… I hate to be pessimistic, but it doesn't look promising. He didn't even seem to know where he was at all. I'm not sure that our… nationalities help anything, but I doubt he even knows what country he's in." Quatre stood up and the two walked to the door. "It may be best to tell his board that for the foreseeable future, Mr. Yuy is going to be unable to return."

"Well, is there anything we can do to make him remember?"

Quatre sighed. "If he had any journals, his emails maybe? Letters or photos… No, hm? I guess he would have lost all that in the collapse… I don't know, Mr. Maxwell. Keep him in your thoughts, and if you think of anything don't be afraid to call me."

Someone and the quiet nurse left, leaving one leaning against the door, hesitating. "Heero, you better come around. There's so much more at stake than you can imagine."

With that, I was alone, and just before sleep enveloped me, I repeated it to myself, Heero Yuy, before realizing I didn't even have a face to put to my own name.