The speed and frequency in which I update this fic astounds me. But I genuinely do love this story. It's something I've worked on for months, developed the idea so intensively to the point of madness. Ask Emma. She's the poor soul who gets the brunt of all my frustrations. Poor girl. So my thanks are to her, for her unending patience and support. And for her friendship. Love you lots, trutsie roll.
This is quite long, and the beginning of this leaves a lot to be desired i think but you judge. I've been writing that part forever, I need to just get it out or I will delete it and start again which will take 5 years.
As usual, un-beta-ed forever, mistakes are mine and I own no one and nothing but the plot.
Enjoy sailors!
Cora stirs to the sound of the rainfall pattering against the roof, hitting the smooth planes of the windows as the wind whips and whooshes around, making a soft whistling sound. She wakes, barely regaining consciousness, instinctively pulling the duvet higher up her neck and wrapping it tighter around her body. She keeps her eyes closed, unwilling to face the day just yet, the warm and soft covers beckoning her (the Egyptian cotton slides silkily against her skin, and it feels nice, cosy), and the air is chilly enough at it has her burrowing deeper for warmth.
She lounges in bed for a few more minutes (a half hour, really, but who's counting?), before she rolls over her bed and opens her eyes. What greets her however, has her closing her eyes again, her heart thundering against her chest out of fear, bewilderment, and is that panic? Oh, yes, yes it is.
She takes a deep, calming breath, her hand falling flat across her chest as she opens her eyes slowly. Everything has remained the same: the four poster bed, the dresser across t, the cream walls and the cherry wood vanity table housing a variety of products, it's all the same.
But this is not her bedroom. In fact, she does not quite remember where she is exactly, not quite sure how the hell she got here either.
The panic is unbidden now, rising up from the pit of her stomach up her throat. Her heart is racing, thumping in a thunderous pace. She doesn't know what to do: clearly she knows this place, has lived here for quite a while if she is wearing her nightgown (it could very well be another person's, but she tries not to think of that), and her picture sits on the side table on her left, so she supposes she lived her, lives here, only she doesn't know how or when or why that's happened. She doesn't quite remember.
She tries to reign in the overflowing nerves and climbs out of bed gingerly. She looks around, tries to jog any memory, but no such luck, so she fetches the robe that is draped at the back of the vanity chair and dons it on, wrapping it securely around her waist. Her footfalls make no noise against the soft carpet as she pads across the threshold and makes her way out of the bedroom. She gives it one last look before she slips out to the hall and closes the door behind her.
The halls are spacious and quiet, it is long and daunting as she figures out which way to go. She feels so much like Alice, trying to figure out which door to open, which one would lead to an answer, and which one would lead to another maze or the mad hatter. She isn't quite sure, can't quite guess, there are too many doors left and right.
Alas, she makes it to the top of the stairs, and she decides to climb down and hope for the best carefully counting the steps in an attempt to distract herself from her panic. Her feet land on the bottom steps and she thinks that her heart has fallen along with it, the shattered pieces pooling at her feet. The said organ knocks against her chest, however, to let her know of its existence—it hasn't dropped to her stomach, she's just terrified. And numb, yes, she's numb, too.
She lets her feet lead her then, not entirely sure where she's going, but she hears activity from somewhere, so she follows her sound, swallowing back her fear and apprehension. She realizes that she's walked right into the kitchen when she spots the island counter full of breakfast food, along with the man who stands behind it, preparing what seems to be a breakfast tray. She watches as she carefully places blueberries on top of the stacks of pancakes before he reaches for a single-stemmed yellow rose, dropping it on a small vase on the far left corner of the tray.
She tries to remember who he is, racks her brain for a name to place on the face, but her mind draws a blank. She stands frozen, the dread and anxiety giving her pause and paralyzing her. She clenches her fists on her side and takes a deep breath before inching forward, her eyes trained on the man behind the corner.
Is she waking up and walking on a faceless stranger she had one-night stand with last night? Ugh, but she doesn't feel drunk, and yes, the picture on the nightstand.
"Who are you?" she asks, her voice loud and echoing off the quiet. She watches as the man jumps, clearly startled, and drops the plate he's been holding, the contents of it spilling on the floor.
…
His heart jumps when he hears her voice. He hasn't even realized that she's in the same room. He'd been gripping a plate full with a high stack of blueberry pancakes (her absolute favorite). He had wanted to bring it to her bedroom, preferably after Martha had wakened and explained everything to Cora, but he'd dropped the plate out of shock and surprise, shooting that idea right to hell. Not to mention, Martha is obviously not awake yet and therefore had not been able to explain the situation to Cora.
Afraid to look at his wife in the eyes, he bends down instead and picks up the shattered pieces of the plate. He pricks himself when he picks up one jagged piece and he lets out a hiss and curse.
"Bloody fucking sodding hell," he mutters in plain annoyance as the rust-colored blood oozes out of the long, deep cut, and fuck it hurts like a total bitch, so he lets out another hiss of pain, followed by a string of curses as he tries to pick out the pieces lodged on his skin.
He tries to keep his hand upright, trying in vain to keep the blood from dripping on the cream tiles. Watching for the trail of blood that would follow, he whips his head around in search for the dish towel and spots it on the counter just beside the sink. He makes a move to get it, standing gingerly and balancing himself precariously to keep the blood from further tainting the floor, but Cora beats him to it, grabbing it in her hands and making no noise or sound as she walks toward him. He is floored, his blood dripping (and surely that will make a stain later), but it matters not, not when she is grabbing his hand in her warm ones, wrapping the cloth all over his palm, applying soft, insistent pressure to stop the bleeding. He is paralyzed by their proximity, frozen in place by her warm breath hitting his skin so lightly it feels like gentle caresses of the wind on a spring day (his heart aches like the winter—so cold and so alone, and the thought of the ice thawing and the spring coming to bring relief sounds so brilliant right now). He is unable to speak, unable to register anything beyond the touch of their skins, and it hasn't been long since, he's always held her, touch her in some way when she'd been in coma, even after she'd woken, but this feels different.
This is different, because she is voluntarily holding him, helping him even when she must be so confused.
He feels her pull him towards the sink, her hands still clasping his, and without a word, she turns on the tap and unwraps the dish towel from his wounded hand, pulling it under the faucet to let the water run over it. He lets out a hiss, grimacing at the initial impact of the water rushing down, hitting his tender palm, and she looks up at him, blue eyes warm and concerned.
"I'm sorry," she murmurs, looking down again to tend to his wound. She turns his hand this side and that, both of them watching as the water becomes tinted with the rusty color of his blood.
The room is filled with silence—pregnant with everything left unsaid, of words unspoken and questions unasked, of memories remembered dearly, and memories faded away in her mind, of heated encounters on this very counter, of kisses and embraces, of comfort and pain, of I love you's exchanged that she doesn't even remember now.
Tears prickle his eyes and he knows that it has nothing to do with the gash on his palm.
"Where do you keep your first aid?" her voice breaks through his reverie, and he startles, shaking his head and the thought away, before looking down at her. Her eyes are still the warmest of blue, even in the almost icy shade, and he falls into her, deeper, deeply more in love.
God, he would marry her again once this storm passes, he thinks.
She is still staring at him, and so he snaps out of it, jerking his head towards his right side. "Third cupboard on the left," he says, and watches as she turns the tap off, takes her leave and walks over to the cupboards to fetch the gauze and tape, some Neosporin and something that looks like an antiseptic. He feels the loss of her hand in his keenly.
"This should sting a bit, I'm sorry," she tells him in a soft voice as she pours the antiseptic over his wound, and she's right, it does sting, fuck it hurts, but he holds his breath in until the pain passes, watching as she dabs some Neosporin around the wound before wrapping it in gauze and taping it together. "That should do it," she says with a little smile.
It is so reminiscent of the Cora she doesn't even remember being that it makes his heart clench.
"Thank you," he says, and unable to stop himself, he tilts her chin up just enough so their eyes would meet, blue against blue. He feels his heart race, she looks so beautiful, so divine, her porcelain skin almost glistening in the bright lights, her pink lips parted slightly, and her eyes are wide and rounded, so blue, so open. He couldn't help but lean in, to be honest, his body has moved on its own volition, without his permission, and before he even knows what he is doing his breath is already hitting the pale skin of her face, and she is making no move to stop him.
"There you are, I've been loo—," Robert hears his mother-in-law's shrill voice as she steps into the kitchen, the same voice that fades into an echo the moment she does.
What a picture they must have painted, Robert thinks as Cora jumps away from her like a recoiling spring, and he feels his heart drop, drop, drop lower and then shatter. His hand falls on to his side, the injured one gripping the counters. What rotten timing, he thinks.
But maybe it is for the best…he can't be kissing his wife when she barely remembers, scratch that, not barely, she doesn't at all remember who he is.
"Mother," Cora exclaims, sounding so delighted, and she flees to her mother's side, taking Martha's hand in hers and bombarding her in questions that he cannot hear anymore—her words slur in his brain, merging onto one another and making an annoying buzzing sound in his ear.
He feels like the world is spinning, but that could just be him exaggerating. The world cannot be revolving so fast that he thinks it might throw him off. But his world had been thrown so off balance the past few weeks that it is hard to tell what the fates and the world would or would not do.
…
Cora feels dizzy.
She feels like she'd gone on a merry-go-round that went too fast and now she feels so immensely out of balance and out of sorts she isn't really sure what's going on. Her brain is mushy, and she feels shiver running down her spine, but could that just be his hands on her chin, tilting her head up?
She watches with half-hooded eyes as he leans in, his eyes on her face, lips, and it feels like a caress—but how could that be when he is just looking at her, staring at her so intently? She should push him away, should not let this happen…he is a stranger, for god's sake. What is even his name? She doesn't thinks she had even asked yet.
But his hand is warm and his breath is tickling her face, and she is looking at his parted lips and thinks that she might need them, might need them pressing against hers. Her breath comes in short now, with very little intervals in between, and she needs something…but god, this is crazy!
"There you are, I've been loo—," her mother's voice cuts right in the moment and she is pulled back down to earth. She pulls away from the man before her faster than she ever remembers pulling away from someone. She whips her head and finds her mother looking at them intently, curiously, like she's missing something, and honestly, Cora thinks that so does she.
She almost breaks to a run towards her mother's side, but the distance is short and she covers it in all of five seconds. She bombards her mother with questions: where are they, why are they here, what the hell is going on…all so she could ignore that empty feeling in her stomach the moment she'd been out of his proximity. She needs him close, closer, but she doesn't understand the pull, she can't place it, can't name it…all she knows is right now she is confused.
Her mother is looking at her oddly, apparently not convinced by her act, but mother pulls her into the next room, leaving the man alone in the kitchen. Cora fights back the urge to look back at him.
"What is the last thing you remember?" Martha asks suddenly when they are in what appears to be the den. Cora looks at her mother in bewilderment. "When you woke?"
Not much, if Cora is being honest with herself, so she shrugs. "I don't know, I was too preoccupied with the shock of waking up somewhere I don't know," she answers with a frown, her eyebrows furrowing.
"What year is it, Cora?" Martha asks, raising an eyebrow.
Cora looks at her mother oddly. Has mother been hitting the liquor cabinets already? "It's 2010," she says with a rise of her own eyebrow, surprised that her mother should ask, but answering the question nonetheless.
"Ah," Martha hums, closing her eyes and then opening them to look at her. Her warm brown eyes are clouded with sadness. "I'd thought given what I walked in earlier on, you'd have remembered."
"Remember what?" Cora asks, feeling the panic rising up in her again, as it had when she'd woken, only this time it comes out in spades, more intense.
"Cora, you have amnesia," Mother blurts out so suddenly (but really, there is no other way to say it than saying it as it is).
Cora feels so dizzy.
…
Robert paces down the hall anxiously. Martha has warned him off seeing Cora, and he knows that that would be for the best, she's feeling emotional right now after finding out what she had, but he can't help but worry, and he feels the apprehension and dread filling him, coursing through his veins. He keeps gnawing at his bottom lip, wondering about her, and what she is doing, and how she must be feeling.
After Martha had dragged her out of the kitchen and explained things to her, Cora had sequestered herself in the bedroom, and hadn't come out since. It's lunchtime now, and Martha has offered to bring her up some lunch but she had declined, much to Robert's dismay.
"She's going to be fine, Robert," Martha says as she passes him by, tapping his shoulder affectionately. "She just needs to work it out of her system. This is a shock to her."
And he knows that, logically, he knows that—it doesn't mean that he isn't worried.
"I just want her to be okay," he admits with a shrug, as he helplessly runs his fingers through his hair.
"She will be," Martha assures her. "She's resilient. Throw her any curveball and she'll work her way through it. She just needs some time."
Robert nods, feeling despondent and worthless, but what else could he do?
He tries to busy himself with things then, moving to the library to think, drink, maybe come up with some solutions to their problem. None is helping at the moment, this is just the way nature runs, he can't rush it. Cora won't start therapy for another two weeks, and until then, all of them would just have to be patient. His eyes wander to Cora's desk, there must be something that could help in there.
He walks over and sits behind it, his gaze falling onto the picture sitting atop it. The photograph is of them, taken on their engagement party. He remembers one of their friends taking that photo, but he hadn't known then that it was being taken, so the shot looks perfectly candid. He has his arms around her, looking down at her adoringly, and she had been looking up at him, her arms wrapped around his waist. She's smiling, so beautiful and so radiant. They'd been so happy then.
Will they be happy again?
Shaking his head and opening the top draw, he snoops around for something…anything that might help. His hand falls on a black leather bound notebook and he lifts it up, gazing at the cover and finding nothing but Cora C. engraved on the front.
He flips open the notebook, not at all surprised to find his wife's elegant scrawl on the pages. What is surprising is what's inside…her innermost thoughts of the last few years. Wary of his wife's privacy that he might breach, he leafs through the pages, finding the end and finding that there are no more pages to be filled. She's filled it all. He reckons that whatever might be inside might help.
And suddenly, an idea sparks in his head.
Happy now that he might be able to help her even in little ways, he springs up and out of the chair and walks out of the library. He searches for Martha and tells his mother-in-law that he needs to step out a bit.
With a pep on his step, he sets on trying to win back his wife.
…
Cora's eyes feel like they are grating on sandpaper. She is tired, exhausted really, and she feels the last of her tears flow from her eyes. She can't quite comprehend what is happening, can't quite understand why, but there is no sense in wallowing, and so she tells herself to get out of this sullen mood (really it's more than just a mood, it's her life, but there is no need in making herself lose her mind that way), and so she gets out of bed and walks out of the bedroom.
She finds her mother in the den, and she almost asks where her husband is (it still feels odd to know she has a husband but not remember him), but she stops herself, instead she plops down on the seat behind her mother, snuggling into her for comfort.
"You'll make it through this," Martha whispers against her temple, and Cora wishes for that so much, really, she does.
They spend the next few minutes that way, sitting together with their arms around one another, seeking solace and comfort with each other. Cora reminisces over her childhood, the many, many times that she'd spent cuddled with her mother, crying over things that don't matter now, but mother has always been her comfort, even when they don't always agree. Her mother may not always be her biggest fan (she doesn't always approve of everything Cora does), but mother will always be her biggest source of comfort, and she knows that.
"I thought I might look into some albums," Cora says, breaking through the silence. "Just check on some pictures, maybe it would jog some memory."
Martha pulls away from her only daughter a little bit, just enough to be able to look her in the eyes. "Of course, that's a wonderful idea," she agrees. "I remember you used to keep them in the library."
Cora nods and smiles, makes a move to get up. Martha does the same, but Cora waves her off. "I want to do this on my own, please," she says. Reluctantly, Martha agrees, telling her the way to the library but letting her leave on her own.
And that is how she found herself hours later: pouring over the pictures of the years she's missed. Most of them are of herself and her husband…some with a red head that she assumes is his sister, and some with other people, some with his parents, it seems.
They look so happy, she realizes. There are only a handful of pictures where she doesn't see either of them smiling, even in the obviously candid ones, but their smiles had their eyes sparkling and she can see, even through the still images how happy they must have been.
She feels tears well up her throat, to her eyes again at the thought that she can't remember that…being happy with him, can't remember him. She wipes the tears from her cheeks just as a knock on the door startles her.
She turns around to find her husband standing by the door, looking at her with concern.
"Hey," she greets softly, even when she feels apprehensive. But she's made a promise to herself that she is going to give this a try, he deserves as much.
"Hello," he greets back and, at her nod, walks towards where she is currently sitting. She has parked herself on the floor, by the hearth, dozens of album sprawled around her. "Your mother says you've come out of the bedroom."
She nods. "I'm feeling much better now," she divulges, nodding towards the albums around her. "I thought I'd give a look into the life I used to live."
Robert nods and smiles. "That's a good start," he says, taking a seat next to her. He is far enough that it's a respectable amount of distance, but she can still feel the warmth radiating off him.
"Only I probably won't even remember it tomorrow," she says bitterly, the acid spilling at every word. She hates this situation more than anyone.
He grabs her hand, an impulsive reaction no doubt, and it startles her but she doesn't say anything, instead she basks in the warmth of his touch.
"You'll remember," he says with conviction. "Just be patient and don't lose hope."
She nods and looks down at their joined hands. She looks back up at him and her heart breaks at the pain looming behind his blue orbs. "It must be so hard for you too," she says, more than asks, really, because it must be.
"Not any harder than it is for you," he tells her with a shrug. "You're the one going through the condition."
It's true, that.
"But…" and she trails off, unsure of whether or not she should say it, but he squeezes her hand, looks at her in earnest, prompting her to continue. "But you loved her…me…or the woman I used to be, I saw it in your eyes through the pictures, you love her." She bites her lip. "What if she never comes back?"
He shakes his head and pulls his hand away to cup her cheek. "No," he says vehemently. "I love you, and it doesn't matter to me which one you're going to be…the past or the future or the present you…as long as you come back to me."
His words knock her heart out of her chest, stealing away her breath. He loves her that much? She doesn't really know what to say to that.
She averts her eyes and looks at the picture before her. It's taken on their wedding day it seems, whilst they were dancing. He's looking at her and she at him, and even through a picture, Cora could feel the intensity.
"You looked so happy," she comments, pulling her gaze away from the picture. "We looked so happy."
He nods, his hands had long since dropped from her face and are clutching hers again. He squeezes, once, twice. "We were," he admits. She looks up at him, surprised by the passionate way in which he says those words. "We could still be again."
But how?
She remains silent as she tries to fight back the tears. She doesn't know what to say.
"Anyway, I've gone out to give you this," he says, handing her a black leather bound notebook with her name engraved in gold on the cover. She raises her eyebrow. "This is yours. I found it in your desk." He jerks his thumb over behind him. "I didn't read through it, but I thought you might want to have a look."
She pulls her hands from his and takes the notebook from him. She leafs through the pages, finding her writing on every page. She smiles, maybe she'll learn more about the woman she'd become. "Thank you," she tells him, smiling up at him.
He nods at her and smiles back, handing her another one. "And this is for you as well," he says. She takes the notebook from him, leafing through it, surprised to find it empty. She looks at him. "It's for your new memories. I know that when you wake, you lose the ones you gained today, so I thought you could write them down, so you could just read through the next morning and it can help you be settled, remember."
Her heart fill with emotions she cannot describe and she grips the notebook tighter in her hands. She looks at him, her vision blurring as her tears flood her eyes, but he reaches out to her, and brushes the tears with the pads of his thumbs away.
He pulls her close, and she doesn't protest, cannot possibly under the circumstances, with her heart beating so hard and so loud, and every single sense she has tingling and hypersensitive. He kisses her cheek and then rests their foreheads together. For a moment, they breathe as one, two people joined by matrimony and unforgotten love, even with forgotten memories. For a moment it is blissful and right, everything feels like its fallen into place.
"I will always remind you, Cora," he says, his voice strengthened by promise and conviction, "I will always remind you of our love, until you remember, until you can no longer forget."
A/N: Don't know what happened to the ending. Hope you like it though. And did I mention that this is kinda angsty? No? Yeah?
I would really love to hear your thoughts! Opinions, suggestions, ANYTHING, just to gauge if y'all interested :) or if I'm doing something wrong or hopefully right. anyhow, thanks for reading (and let's all weep now bc they aired the penultimate ep for DA-lemme go drown in my own tears).
