A/N: This story ia a response to a "Monday Maim Challenge" from the SOSF Writer's group. Thanks to everybody there for geat ideas and encouragement. A big, big thank you to my Beta Tanith 2011 for her great suggestions and for ironing out linguistic glitches.
Disclaimer: Not for profit, just for fun! I do not own the characters, I just borrow them for a little while.
All it takes
Mike Stone sat in the waiting room of the hospital- once too often, he felt. He had received a call at the Bureau a few hours earlier, informing him that his friend and partner Steve Keller had been involved in a car accident and had been taken to the hospital with serious head injuries. He had reached the hospital in record time and since his arrival he couldn't help but brood out of worry for his protégé. He thought back to what the telephone call had entailed. Steve had been tailing a suspect, when for whatever reason an oncoming small delivery truck veered into his lane causing a head-on collision.
"Lieutenant Stone?" a tired looking doctor asked.
Breaking out of his reverie, Mike jumped up. "Yes, that's me. How is he?"
"He is stable now, but still unconscious."
"Stable? So he's going to be alright?" Mike dared to hope again.
"He will live." The doctor answered evasively. "We don't know the full extent of the damage yet."
"What do you mean damage? Are you talking about brain damage?"
The doctor sighed. "It is early days, but I don't want to raise false expectations. He may wake up and be just fine, but the swelling of the delicate brain tissue may cause lasting damage. It could affect his speech, mobility, memory..." the doctor stopped when he saw the look of horror on Mike's face. "Look, Lieutenant, occupational therapy can do wonders these days- lost brain function can be partially recovered."
Mike swallowed hard. The idea of his young and lively friend being incapacitated in any way didn't bear thinking. He realised the doctor was still talking but he couldn't take anything else in. All he heard was, "Do you want to see him now? It may help him to come round when he hears a familiar voice."
Mike followed the doctor into the room. Steve was hooked up to all kinds of tubes connected to machinery monitoring the vital functions and an IV line keeping him hydrated. His face was battered and bruised and he looked pale and fragile. Mike sat down beside him and took his hand. "Hi buddy boy! You gave me a real scare there, but the doc said you'll be alright. You just need to wake up for me now..." Mike kept talking about whatever came to mind, if it needed a familiar voice to bring his partner around he would talk until his voice gave out. After what seemed like an eternity, Steve's eyelids began to flutter. "Steve- buddy boy- can you hear me?"
The young man's eyes opened tentatively and a vacant gaze fixed on Mike. "Who are you?"
Mike felt as if a chasm had opened under him. With a sinking feeling and a slightly forced smile he explained. "Steve, it's me, Mike."
The young man swallowed hard and didn't reply. "Wait a minute, you must be parched. Here, drink some water." The simple caring action gave Mike some time to collect his thoughts as he helped Steve position himself against the pillows.
After a few sips of water through a bended straw Steve still looked at his mentor in utter confusion. "I'm really sorry, but I don't know who you are."
Mike tried not to let the horror he felt show in his face and forced an encouraging smile. "But you know who you are, don't you?"
The confused look in the young man's face changed to utter despair. "No, I don't!"
The change in his vital signs brought first a nurse and then a doctor into the room. Mike was asked politely but firmly to wait outside while they assessed the patient's condition. He was pacing up and down, thoughts whirling through his head. "Come on, Mike, a few hours ago all you wanted was for him to live, then you wanted him just to wake up and now you're just scared as hell he can't remember a darned thing!" Mike gave himself a pep talk in the hope that he could keep himself together for Steve's sake. "If ever he needed you, he will need you now!"
After what felt like an eternity the doctor came out of the room. "He is doing surprisingly well- physically. But he seems to be suffering from Amnesia. "
"But he will eventually remember, won't he?" Mike rushed in.
"I can't say. He is asleep now and could wake up with the memory fully restored. It may take days or weeks, or it may never come back."
Mike needed time to digest this information. "What can I do to help him?"
"Well, don't rush him or pressurize him. The more he remembers by himself the better. Maybe reintroduce people he knows over the next few days, familiar faces might jog his memory."
ooooooooooo
This was exactly what Mike Stone did, while Steve recovered from his physical injuries. He spent as much time with him as work would allow and every day he brought a different person along with him, colleagues and friends. Mike even managed to track down some of Steve's former girlfriends, but nobody got as much as a smile of recognition.
The distraught older detective urged his daughter Jeannie to come for a long weekend visit, hoping that she might be the one familiar face Steve needed, but when she said good bye to her father at the airport on Sunday evening she looked as heartbroken as Mike felt.
Every day he brought little treats, favourite sweets, magazines, books he remembered Steve talking about and even the despised sunflower seed. But the packet of sunflower seeds remained as tightly sealed as the lost memory. Steve was appreciative of Mike's efforts and polite, but so distant. Mike felt as if he was dealing with a very reserved stranger that happened to be the mirror image of his buddy boy. Lenny Murchison, the consultant psychiatrist of the Bureau, spent time with both Steve and Mike, trying to help them come to terms with Steve's memory loss and to explain how to deal with it.
"I understand how traumatic it must be for him, but why won't he let me help him? He doesn't open up, he barely talks to me." Mike voiced his frustration.
"Well, Mike, all he knows about you and me and anyone else is what we have told him. It takes an awful lot of trust to believe people you don't know." Lenny tried to explain. "It will take time."
Mike sighed; he knew patience wasn't exactly his greatest virtue.
Eventually the doctors decided that going home to his own apartment might speed up the adjustment process better than a prolonged stay in hospital. Mike was probably more apprehensive than Steve about the idea of his vulnerable friend being alone in the apartment. It didn't appeal to him at all, but he decided to go along with the doctor's recommendation.
He picked up Steve and helped him fill in the release forms. His heart went out to the young man who looked at him with near panic in his eyes, when he couldn't remember his own birthday.
Instead of going straight to Steve's apartment he cruised through the city that Steve once knew and loved so well- but no spark of recognition. He stopped in front of his own house in the vain hope that his partner would remember it or agree to stay with him for a while.
"I really appreciate your kindness and concern and I understand that this must be very distressing for you too," the half smile he gave Mike was probably the closest to the old Steve that he had gotten so far, "but I really need to work this out on my own."
With a heavy heart Mike drove Steve to his apartment. It felt so wrong having to show him around and it felt even worse having to leave him there on his own.
"Really, I'll be alright. Maybe going through all the stuff here will get the old grey cells working again. At least I hope so!" Steve tried to reassure Mike as well as himself but he wasn't entirely convinced that he would recover his memory.
"You and me both! Listen, I'll leave you to it but I'll call in later and bring some dinner. How about that?"Steve agreed readily and Mike reluctantly took his leave.
oooooooooooo
Alone in his own four walls at last, the distressed young man picked up one object after the other, but nothing felt familiar. Photos, mementos, postcards, books, it was all as if it belonged to a different person, to a different life. He felt the panic he had experienced in the hospital earlier, mounting again. Easy now, Steve, or whoever you are. You're on your own now, as you wanted, so don't panic. Steve half regretted having sent Mike away, the only person in this strange world that he felt a familiar connection with, even though he didn't quite know what it was exactly. Nobody will come running to your rescue now. He took a deep breath and fought the emotions that threatened to overwhelm him by keeping himself busy with some domestic tasks; the place desperately needed tidying and cleaning and he needed to find out where the person called Steve Keller kept all his stuff.
oooooooooooo
Mike fretted all afternoon but he didn't want to crowd his partner by ringing him up and checking on him every five minutes, so he compromised by finishing work uncharacteristically early. He stopped at their favourite Italian for a takeout pizza. Looking at the menu for toppings, a reckless thought occurred to him. What the heck, he won't remember anyhow! And he placed his order.
oooooooooooo
When Steve opened the door for him, Mike thought that he looked a bit better, the bruises had faded, the bandage that had covered the head wound had been replaced by a smaller dressing and he didn't look as pale. Maybe being out of hospital was a good idea after all! Mike shifted a box of photos and sat the pizza carton on the table. "You sit down and I'll get us some plates. " Mike headed to the small kitchen and came back moments later carrying plates and paper serviettes. "You know my place better than I do." Steve said with a sigh.
Mike's good mood at seeing his partner settled at home evaporated. "Don't worry about that now and eat your pizza before it gets cold. It's your favourite!" Mike said with forced cheerfulness. He sat down and they each grabbed a slice.
When Steve took a bite into his slice, the look of pleasant anticipation changed to one of deep disgust. He spat out the mouthful he had taken and shouted. "On my first day home from hospital and here you are trying to poison me with anchovies! Mike, how often have I told you I hate anchovies! I hate the taste and I hate the texture and I hate the look of them- like shrivelled up slugs! You have at least a quadruple helping of the vile stuff on this! I can't believe you even tried to make believe this is my favourite! Of all the tricks you ever played on me this takes the biscuit!" Steve abruptly stopped his rant and a wide smile of relief and immense gratitude spread over his face. "Oh Mike, you did it, I can remember! My memory is coming back!"
With an equally wide grin Mike replied. "It wasn't me, it was the humble anchovy who did it!"