We Might As Well Be Strangers
A/N: The response to the first chapter of this was amazing, thank you all so much for your reviews. And, I'm not a doctor.
Chapter 2
In the small hallway outside of his recovery room there is a flurry of frantic activity. Karen is peppering a doctor with question after question and he's trying his best to answer them without scaring the woman anymore. Two doctors are scanning a series of brain scans on a light table on the wall and talking as quickly as Karen. Peyton separates herself from the chaos as she leans the back of her head against the cold, sterile walls a few feet away from Karen.
She hasn't said a word since it happened, since the most important person in her life woke up with no recollection of who she was. It's all too much for her and she feels like she just wants to run away, to forget everything that has gone wrong in the past twenty-four hours. And she thinks that she just might do it if only she had the energy. But she remembers that the only reason he is in that damn bed is because of her and she knows she has to stay.
She hears Karen ask a question about how long his amnesia will last and Peyton moves from her position along the wall to a space near the older woman so she can hear what the doctor has to say.
The doctor's words don't bring much relief. "Due to the trauma to a specific area of his brain, I'm afraid what we're looking at is retrograde amnesia."
"What does that mean?" Peyton asks calmly.
"Based on the fact that Lucas can remember his mother but not you Ms. Sawyer, we can assume that he's lost at least the last ten years of his memory. He won't remember anyone or anything from this period of time."
"How long will it take him to regain his memory?"
The doctor takes a pregnant pause and looks a little uneasy at the information he is about to share. "Unfortunately with Lucas' condition regaining full memory is very rare. More than likely Lucas will never remember the last ten years that he's lost."
Peyton nods her head in silent acknowledgement but she feels like she's dying inside. When he hadn't remembered her she held on to the hope that it would all eventually return, now that hope was gone. He won't ever remember her and the years they have spent together. She is a stranger to him.
Karen wraps a comforting arm around Peyton's shoulders and tells her how sorry she is. The younger woman attempts a smile and quietly excuses herself before she heads away from the group. She needs to be alone if not for a few minutes to process everything.
She winds up on a bench just outside of the emergency room doors with a cup of stale, hospital cafeteria coffee burning the inside of her palms. It's a chilly night and goose bumps decorate her bare arms. She sips gingerly from the cup and mulls over the options she has.
Hours earlier she had driven him away and he had walked out of her life, whether it was a permanent decision she would most likely never know, but know she had a tricky set of decisions. Karen doesn't know about their breakup and Lucas doesn't remember, she could walk away from it all without hurting anyone. But the terror she felt while waiting for word on his condition, that horrible pit in the bottom of her stomach while she paced the halls of the hospital, the relief that came with knowing he was alright, those are feelings she can't forget. She knows she loves him and she wishes now that she would have said it more often because it won't mean anything to him now.
Suddenly it's as if the clichéd light bulb has gone off over her head. She has the opportunity to walk away but she doesn't want it. She wants the opportunity to start over with him, to redeem herself for the pain she caused him. She wants to be with the man who doesn't remember her, because she remembers who he used to be. She's not going to run again. She stands from the bench like a woman on a mission and tosses the full coffee cup into the nearby garbage before heading back upstairs.
She finds his doctor talking with another man in a long white coat and the doctor excuses himself from the conversation and walks over to her.
"Alright doc, how is this going to work with me and him? I still love him and this amnesia isn't going to stop that."
"If you want to associate yourself back into Lucas' life your only choice at the moment is to start fresh. He's going to have to fall in love with you all over again, but I have to warn you that with such a large chunk of his memory gone there is a possibility that he won't be the same Lucas you knew before. There are no guarantees with amnesia."
"I understand." She nods in acknowledgement.
"Don't try and force the memory to come back. Trying to use triggers, like photographs and stories, to early can sometimes suppress those memories even more. Just be patient, memory recovery is rare but I have seen it happen and it took years for it to come back."
"Would it be okay if I went in and saw him, just for a few minutes."
"He's asleep, but you can go in for few minutes." The doctor gives her a sad smile, knowing full well the struggles she will endure.
She slips into his room as quietly as she can, the last thing she wants to do is have him wake up to a strange face. The room is quiet with only the reassuring beep of his heart monitor making any noise. He looks physically broken with the cuts on his face, the bandage on his head, plus his left arm and leg are wrapped in a cast. She doesn't know where to touch him without hurting him, so she holds tightly onto his hand and whispers that she loves him before leaving his room and heading back to her lonely apartment.