Copyright: I do not own anything in Harvest Moon. If I had... well, I don't.
Author's Note: Well, this is my very first fan fic, but I crave honesty, so please read, write and review! If you like it, feel free to leave good comments. It'll keep my spirit up and keep me writing! Enjoy!
I never even wanted to come to Forget-Me-Not. Perhaps, if I had not, none of this would ever have happened. But do I regret it, looking back on the many years I have spent here? Has it really been seven decades? Was I really just a young boy the first time I stepped foot into the valley, the first time my eyes were blessed with the sight of her?
Celia. My beautiful, perfect, amazing love. How could I ever regret you?
Laura. Despite all that we have been through, despite my illness, my emotional detachment, my unfaithfulness, she never stopped loving me. When I think of her, I see the wife I was lucky to have, the woman whose love I was unworthy of, the mother of my son.
My son. Ethan. If I was ever given anything purely good in this world, it was Ethan. If I could take it back, save one person from the hurt I had caused, it would be my son. I love you, Ethan. I know I was a father to be ashamed of, and I know right now you haven't a hope of forgiving me. No love is more perfect than a parent for their child, yet no love more hurtful than a child for his parent. I can never express to you, my son, how sorry I am for the hurt I have caused you.
Many would call my life a broken one, a life torn between the two things I desired but could only have one of. But they do not know my true story. They do not understand the turmoil I struggled with for the years after I made my choice. This is for the ones who never knew the true story, my story. But mostly this is for the people I love more than life itself; my son, my lover, and my wife. I am sorry.
I was given no choice on the night of my eighteenth birthday, when I awoke with staggering chest pains in a whitewall hospital room. My mother sat by my bedside, along with my younger sister Isabelle. Nicole, a girl I had been dating on and off for around a year now, was nowhere in sight, a small detail yet one that would haunt me for the years to come.
My mother's tired face was streaked with tears, and little Isabelle watched me with wide eyes, as if afraid I would vanish before her. She was only seven at the time, a full eleven years younger than I, and not my whole sister, although I loved her dearly. She was the product of one of our mother's live-in-boyfriends, a lowlife who had run not long after his daughter's birth. They all ran eventually, my own father leading the line. A more hardworking, loving mother that never was, but she was a fool for any man who offered her love.
I kept my eyes lightly shut to give an illusion of unconsciousness, but they flew open the second I heard Him enter the room.
Who was He? He was a man, around six feet tall with light brown hair, slight stubble around the chin, and thin reading glasses that hung on a chain around His neck. Like all that worked in Mercy General Hospital, He wore a long white lab coat with a baby blue nametag. I never did glance at it, and to this day I do not know the name of the Man who condemned me.
"Well, Mr. Robinson," He began, rubbing his eyes lightly with one hand, clutching a transparent clipboard in the other. It was well after one a.m., that I remember perfectly, and the only doctors on duty were either hyped on coffee or asleep on their feet.
"Marlin," my mother broke in sharply, her normally high voice shriller than usual. "My son's name is Marlin, Doctor."
He nodded awkwardly, cleared His throat, and motioned towards little Isabelle. "Yes, well, Ms. Robinson, we need to discuss your son. Is it possible the little girl can…?"
"No," I broke in automatically. My throat contracted instantly, the air leaving my lungs in an unexpected gush until I was left gasping. Doctor He calmly walked over to my bedside, checked my vital machine that beeped irregularly every few seconds, and waited until my attack subsided. "Please, Martin, don't strain yourself," He murmured quietly to me, passing a plastic cup of water I hadn't seen Him fill to my mother.
"What's wrong with him?" little Isabelle broke in, her tiny voice like wind-chimes to me. But I could not fake a smile, not even for Isabelle. "What's wrong with Marlin?"
"Well, we really do not know," He began awkwardly, sitting on the edge of the bed and moving almost immediately to the other side of the room, away from my family and me. "We can run more tests, but from what we can already gather, it seems as if you have developed an infection. It spread from your chest to your lungs in a remarkably short amount of time, which caused your situation here. Do you remember anything that happened, before your blackout?"
I remembered, but only images, and briefly. A kiss upon the cheek for my mother before heading to the bar for the night, to celebrate my eighteenth in true eighteen-year-old fashion; whiskey shots with my trusty fake ID. I had been drinking regularly now for two years, but despite what my mother had occasionally accused me, I was not an alcoholic. It was more of a hobby, a way to get out of my average, everyday life… if only for a little while.
The bar had been crowded, and I had only just received my first few shots when it happened.
The attack was my first, and as firsts usually go, memorable. My drink slipped from my hand, came crashing to the floor with a sickening shatter. No one but the bar tender paid it any mind, and only then to snap that I would be charged for the glass as well. I couldn't answer; I couldn't breathe. My vision became blurred, my breathing shallow and then nonexistent. A constricting pain, the tightest poison embrace to ever have held me, grabbed my chest. I was falling, falling, tumbling into blackness….
And then I awoke here.
Returning to reality, I shook my head at Him, not trusting my lungs to cooperate.
"Marlin…" my mother whispered, her voice quivering despite the strong composure she was trying so desperately to withhold for her children. "But Doctor, he's only eighteen! How in the world could he get so sick, so quickly?"
"Does he work around any construction sites?"
Why was I being talked about as if I were not right there? I was eighteen, for God's sake, not eight!
"I work in an appliance store," I snapped. "It's not like I'm going around huffing paint fumes."
He looked surprised to hear me speak, but straightened up immediately. "Of course not," he soothed. "But the city has become more congested lately because of the two new factories that opened up not far from the hospital. Unfortunately, the air pollution can cause weak lungs to become even weaker. Do you have a family history, Ms. Robinson, of any cancers or upper respiratory problems? Your husband?"
"My dad left," I snapped. I hated when people asked of the man, especially to my mother. "And no, she doesn't."
He looked very uncomfortable. Good.
"Well, family history or no, you have a problem," He said coldly. "We can put you on steroids and try an inhaler, but I cannot guarantee they will help. The only thing…"
"We'll take it!" my mother interrupted. Tears had begun to freefall once more down her cheeks, her grip tightening on Isabelle. "Anything that will help him, Doctor, we will take it."
"The only thing," He continued, slightly annoyed by the interruption. "that may help Marlin is an experimental drug that recently came out, but it is risky and the price quite high. And I cannot promise that it will cure him, or even have an effect, but it is an option."
"How high?" my mother whispered, and a pain worst than the attack formed in my chest. Money had always been tight for my mother; raising two children on her own, working several jobs at once and living in a tiny apartment took its toll on a single mother. I avoided asking her for anything that would come out of her pocket and not my own. I couldn't let her.
"No, Doctor," I murmured, almost inaudibly. "I won't take it. Is there anything else?"
He glanced at me, sighed, and rubbed his eyes once more. "The only other thing I can suggest is moving to a less congested area, away from the city. Cleaner air would be much better for your lungs and could prevent another attack."
"Away from the city?" I repeated. I couldn't leave. This was my home, this was where my family was. I couldn't leave. Where in the world would I go?
"I strongly recommend it, especially if you choose not to go with the experimental drug," Doctor He exclaimed, His face much more animated now that he could recommend a solid treatment. "There is no telling how the congestion could continue wearing on your lungs, and the next attack could be much, much worse. In fact, if I may, I know a lovely little valley right down the hill, not far from the city but with much cleaner air. A colleague of mine resides there, and he says it is a lovely little village."
"Forget-Me-Not Valley?" my mother chimed in suddenly. "You want to send my son to Forget-Me-Not?"
"Ma'am, it would be the best for him," Doctor He said firmly.
And though I was eighteen, a legal adult, my fate was sealed.
Little did I know how thankful I would one day be for the Nameless Doctor.
Author's Note: So, do you like? Chapter 2 is already up, so if you like it, keep on going! Trust me, this was just a bit of background and a little foreshadowing in the beginning. As the game does not elaborate much on Martin's illness, I had to make do with what I was given, so....