A/N: Thanx to all the ppl who took the time to drop reviews on the last chappie! They were useful, really! (I happen to find motivation quite useful ) So, uhh here's #2… Enjoy!


CHAPTER TWO: FORGETFUL

Quillish returned to the clinic the next day, without Roger. That same nurse greeted him and led him to room 314. She gave him a bit of an unofficial status report. The boy had allowed himself to be treated, albeit reluctantly, and was slowly gaining back some strength. His various wounds were healing quite well—better than expected, actually, and his hemoglobin level had been successfully stabilized. All in all, he seemed to be doing well, but he refused to eat or speak and had woken up screaming in the middle of the night. Their staff fathomed a nightmare. An official report would be ready to hand to him, his caretaker—Quillish chucked at this—in a few hours.

The room was very different this time, it was neat and tidy, but the cot and its occupant remained against the corner. The boy, who was biting his thumb, did not look up at this new presence but Wammy could have sworn he saw a spark go off in the child's eyes. 'Wishful thinking, perhaps?'

"Good morning!" He chimed, sweeping off his bowler hat.

"Good morning Mr. Wammy," came a polite yet muddled voice.

"Are you feeling any better today?"

A pause, then a nod.

"Jolly good!"

Quillish took a seat in the same armchair he had cleared the day before, next to the door with the bed almost in front of him. As the minutes snailed by and neither said a word, Quillish pulled a book out from his satchel and began to read, keeping the book low enough to have a peripheral view of the boy. After a good measure, he looked up to find the child staring at him as intensely as the day before. The boy swiftly broke eye-contact and rested his chin on his knees. Quillish frowned and decided it was time to speak again.

"I dare say, you look quite bored," he said.

The eyes looked up for a split second before returning to stare off into oblivion. Quillish decided to press the issue. "I could get you a book or a puzzle if you want." The boy scowled at his bandaged toes and hugged his knees tighter, as though he were bracing himself.

"Mr. Wammy,"

"Yes m'lad?"

"Can I ask a favor of you?"

Quillish was quite taken aback. That was the most he'd spoken in a straight line. "Why, sure. Anything at all,"

"Could you please speak frankly, sir?"

This was definitely the last thing he'd expected to hear. 'Speak frankly? What on earth?'

"You thought—" the boy continued, rocking back and forth, causing the cot's hinges to squeak, "I… I know you did not come here to entertain me… sir." His tone was even, though he looked downright frightened, wide eyes fixed on the cot's railing as though he might melt it. Quillish, meanwhile, stared at the lithe, curled-up figure in front of him, speechless. So the boy had calculated that far. 'But it is impossible! He is a child. Maybe if he were older—No, even if he were older he shouldn't be able to, not after the ordeal he has surely been put through. Why is he so calm? Why is he able to speak at all?!' Wammy slapped himself mentally. He must not loose his cool over this. He had dealt with difficult children in the past but this scenario was totally new to him. Who was this boy? Maybe that's what he should find out to begin with. But first…

"Do you have any questions for me?" He had planned on asking this all along but never had he imagined he would be doing so this soon. Children were essentially delicate but his one seemed almost impervious to most affronts. "Please, bear in mind that I am ultimately trying to help you," he decided to be frank. The boy seemed to consider this, nibbling on his thumb once more.

"Where am I?"

"You are at St. Augustene's Clinic for—"

"I meant what country,"

'Cheeky lad…' "New Zealand,"

The child nodded his head slowly.

"Anything else?"

The boy did not answer so Quillish took this as a no.

"What is your name?" he echoed yesterday's question.

"I—" the patient began but his eyes widened a second later, oddly bright, "I don't know…" He seemed to realize this for himself. Suddenly, he gripped his hair and curled his toes, eyes ferociously open, fine brows furrowed with sheer confusion. "I don't know anything!" his voice was hardly more than a heated whisper.

Quillish was shocked into silence for the third time since he'd met the boy but at least his mind did not freeze as well. 'Amnesia?' He considered all the possibilities. 'A head trauma… psychological repression… or is he lying to me?' he decided to scratch the latter of these options.

"You don't remember?"

The boy let go of his head and shook it. No.

"Nothing at all?"

"Nothing. It feels weird—" his voice cracked slightly on the end and his pale cheeks turned red. He buried his face in his knees and Quillish felt a small knot form in his throat.

Total amnesia? 'The poor thing. Any other kid would be distraught, they would panic. This boy is wrecked, any fool can see that. But he is also strong and, what baffles me the most, he is relatively calm for someone who's forgotten who he is… his judgment is sound under such pressure. I wonder exactly how far back he remembers and why and what it is that he forgot. I must help him! For his sake, for the sake of the investigation—' That's right, the investigation! Quillish had forgotten all about it. He was so wrapped up in this conundrum that he had completely missed the larger puzzle, the one that began with investigating the mafia. Quillish walked over to the cot and placed a hand on the boy's shoulder. The child visibly recoiled but made no move otherwise.

"Do you want me to help you remember?" he uttered softly, using his free hand to smooth back the boy's hair. It was a ragged, course mess of a mop. The young lad looked up brusquely, forcing Quillish's hand away from his hair. Wammy also let go of the child's shoulder and peered into his face instead. The younger one had not been crying. He just stared ahead with a grim expression and nodded fiercely. Quillish had to smile.

'This boy's resolve is impressive. Maybe he really is…'

"Very well," he said, remembering what the nurse had told him, "but you must rest and recover. I was told you have not been eating. You cannot think on an empty stomach and drugs alone will not give you back your strength." The boy did not seem uncomfortable in the least bit, his face a blank mask. Instead, he simply shook his head.

"You are not hungry?" Quillish asked, raising a bushy eyebrow.

"Not for hospital food," the boy countered evenly. The older man chuckled, causing the younger one to glance up at him. 'Picky, now, aren't we…' "Then, what are you hungry for?"

No answer.

'Just when I thought we were getting somewhere.' Quillish sighed. He was in for a rough one, he knew.


The hours came and went unheeded that day. Quillish knew they were making slow but steady progress despite earlier mishaps. At the moment, he was back to reading his book while the nameless boy had a great many pages of a newspaper scattered around his bed and the floor, and was working furiously on one of them.

The had reached the mutual agreement that they would take it easy for the day, that Quill was going to investigate at home and try to jolt the boy's memory tomorrow. Quillish had then gone out to the store to buy a couple of puzzles for him as reward for eating a good portion of his lunch. The child devoured the puzzles mercilessly—Quillish had made sure to bring along some pretty difficult ones to test the boy. The youngster in question had all but memorized the puzzles at the one-hour mark so Quillish was forced to improvise. He'd found an old newspaper and turned to the entertainment section. There was a letter soup and a crossword puzzle, both starring New Zealand political themes. That wouldn't do. Then he'd found a good number of Sudoku grids. 'Maybe…'

The boy had no idea what Sudoku was so he gazed a question at the older man. Quillish had barely finished explaining when the child asked him for a pen and started filling out the empty boxes on the newspaper. A mere eight minutes later he was done with all five of them. Quillish soon found himself scouring the whole clinic for old newspapers.

'If this boy knows why I am doing this then he must be showing off. Though he does not lack "flaunting material" at all!'

He now watched the boy as he scribbled away, hunched over in what seemed to be his predilect posture and awkwardly holding the pen by its upper tip. Due to his bandaged hands, Quillish could only guess. The puzzle boxes lay to one side, forgotten. A flip of the page and the pen began to scratch at the paper once more. 'Finished again? Under one minute this time…'

Just then, a soft knock came at the door. Some random nurse with a long braid walked in with a tray, carrying several medical utensils. "Hello" she said sweetly to the nameless boy who immediately reacted by dropping the pen and scuttling back to the corner. Wammy frowned at the reaction but the nurse seemed to notice neither. "Time for your checkup," she said, emphasizing the last word. The small figure at the corner seemed to shrink with every passing second.

'Poor thing,' thought Quillish, 'Whatever these checkups are, they do not sound too nice' Quillish was not too fond of hospitals either. They always pulled the darkness over his mind again.

"Now, let me take a look at your back," the nurse insisted, causing her patient to curl further into himself. Quillish got up slowly and shut his book with a snap. "I'll be just outside for the time being." The child looked up at him almost imploringly but did not say a word.

"If anything comes up, just holler."

"Sure" the nurse answered, not seeming to notice that Quillish had not been speaking to her.

As Quillish waited outside, staring out a window with a flawless posture and his hands clasped behind his back, he heard the pitter-patter of small, hurried steps coming towards him. He knew it must be that chubby, red-head nurse. He turned around, already smiling. 'Sure enough…'

"Here you go, Mr. Wammy; the evaluation results, as promised."

He was handed a sheaf of paper with charts and graphs as he had requested. He would let the experts analyze those. Quillish, however, was more interested in the summarized, written report. He thanked the nurse with a courteous, hats-off bow and sat down on the nearby waiting area to read. He adjusted his spectacles and shuffled through the pile until he found what he was looking for.

The report mostly contained what he already was expecting. He read under his breath, skipping words in favor of finding results, "Slight hypothermia—already gone… dehydration—slowly receding… very low blood sugar—now that's a big problem. Good signs of flawless scarring—excellent, excellent… presents symptoms of chronic—what is this—anemia? By Jove! Is that why he is so pale? Arrived with a bit of a concussion—no surprise there. So maybe the head trauma did cause the amnesia! Let's see, what else… found traces of—"

Quillish stopped dead in his tracks with a gasp. The last thing he read convinced him that it was not a head trauma, but psychological repression what had caused him to forget. 'This boy has been—' Wammy gritted his teeth and dropped the report on his lap to keep himself from wrinkling it. He placed a careworn hand to his temple and read through the last two lines once more. Quillish shook his head in disgust and disbelief. 'The monsters, no wonder the boy does not want to remember!' He sighed and slammed the stack of papers down on a nearby coffee table, positively seething.

He most definitely HAD to catch the bastards that did this.


A/N: Okaaaaay, it was kinda' awkward to write that last part. Hell, it was awkward to write the whole conversation thing! I'm sorry if this chapter was a bit dull (the next one compensates, BIG TIME and is already in progress) or if you didn't get what happened to the boy… Any way, thanks to those of you who read, I will now beg u to review: ehem! pleaseeeee! X3 Tell me what you think even if it's two words!

Thank you!

-Shiva