Title: Forgive and Forget (Chapter three)
Author: Marcela86
Rating: PG-13 to be safe
Feedback: YES!!! I love reviews!
Disclaimer: The Invisible Man doesn't belong to me(I wish!). No copyright infringement is intended.
Summary: Alternate plot take-off from Germ Theory
Spoilers: Big ones for Germ Theory, and Brother's Keeper
Author's Notes:
Wow. I tried to warn all of you when I started this, but I didn't mean for there to be this much time in between updates. I'm really sorry about the wait, and I'd like to dedicate this next part to all those who took the time to read my story and reply to it. You guys don't know how much those reviews mean to me. (unless you, yourself, write fic. hehe) I'll try to get this story going again, with faster updates; but that all depends on how much time my life will allow me to work on my fics. There might be a bit of time after this chapter for the next update regardless, as it seems the plot bunny has up and run away in my absence. *walks away muttering about 'darn, no good, sneaky plot bunnies*
PS- If you have the time, please go and R&R the other, non-I-Man stories I've posted! They don't get much attention.
PSS- On another note, I've started uploading some of my artwork onto a site called elfwood.com, my page is at: http://elfwood.lysator.liu.se/loth/s/c/scififreaker/scififreaker.html
Thanks, and on with the story…
---------------------------------------
The door to The Keep swooshed open, and Hobbes strode inside. "Claire, I know you don't want me in here pestering you, but I really need to keep an eye on- DARIEN?"
Hobbes ran over to the section of the lab where he saw Darien and Claire standing, and glanced at their faces. Something was going on here; he could tell. Claire's mouth was hung open in disbelief, and his partner was cradling… something. It was too dark to tell.
Darien looked up and smiled sheepishly. "Oh, hey…" he trailed off, and turned to Claire, looking at her pointedly.
She snapped out of her reverie, and supplied, "Bobby." Hobbes looked from one to the other in deep confusion, and tried to get a closer look at what Darien was holding.
"What's going on here?" he asked. "And while we're at it, why is Fawkes holding a…" he reached forward and lifted Darien's hand off the creature, causing the tarantula to scrabble up Darien's arm. "Spider?!"
Claire sighed, and stepped forward, a look of chagrin on her face. "Darien," she said, addressing the man who was interestedly watching the arachnid move up his arm. He looked up quizzically at her voice.
"That's me, right?" Darien asked. His brow was wrinkled in confusion, eyes full of concern and a touch of anxiety. A small frown played on his face. Claire sighed again, her fears confirmed, and turned to Hobbes. She frowned, "Bobby, it seems we have a problem."
********************
Claire and Hobbes stared at each other, trying to think of a way to help out the situation. Trying to break the ice, a still confused Darien tried to get some answers.
"Okay," he started, eyes narrowed in concentration. "My name is…Darien Fawkes?" he asked, trying to piece together the pieces of information he had heard since the lady doctor woke up. He looked over to the other two in the room, looking for confirmation.
Hobbes still stood motionless, eyeing Darien with shock. Claire, however, snapped out of her disbelief enough to nod to Darien. "Yes," she added to the motion.
Darien scrunched his nose up at that. "Ew…" A look of disappointment and disgust masked his features, and caused both Claire and Hobbes to grin in the humor of it.
Hobbes squinted his eyes once again at Darien, then turned to Claire. "What happened? Did the weight of his hair finally do in his brain?" Hobbes had a wry grin on his face, trying to play down the seriousness of the situation with a joke. Claire sighed and gently took the spider from Darien's arm, placing it back into its home.
"Well at least I have hair, Lithium Bob," Darien quipped absentmindedly, his eyes twinkling. When he finished, he looked as shocked as Claire and Bobby. "Whoa," he said, closing his eyes and rubbing his temples. "I'm sorry, I don't know where that came from. I mean, I barely know you, and already I'm insulting you."
"No, Darien, you don't need to apologize," Claire said warmly, a small smile forming on her face. "It looks like you'll be getting your memory back, eventually."
"So, ah…what do we do until then?" Hobbes asked, visibly relieved from the latest piece of news.
"Well," Claire started. "We could try to jog his memory…"
*************************
An hour later, Darien was filled in on the limited knowledge Claire and Hobbes knew of his past, and up to some of the cases Hobbes and he had been on. So far, they left out the parts having to do with Quicksilver and the rest of the QS9300 project.
After a while, Darien caught on that they were hiding something from him, catching sight of the troubled glances they shot back and forth. "Okay," he said at last. "I may have amnesia, but I'm pretty sure I'm not stupid. Now, you guys are hiding something from me, and I wanna know what." He looked expectantly to Claire, then Hobbes.
The two looked to each other, seemingly arguing with their eyes. Finally, Hobbes broke the silence. "Claire, we need to tell him. He deserves to know." He stared at Darien sympathetically.
"But Bobby, this could seriously traumatize him!" Claire sighed, aggravated. "It took him so long to get over his…situation, and I don't think he'll be able to take it all in so quickly."
Darien was very confused by the heated argument going on before him, and a bit concerned. "Okay, you know what?" he interrupted the other two. "I think I'm capable of handling whatever you're gonna tell me, and I'm pretty sure you guys know me as a stubborn person."
"You got that right," Hobbes muttered under his breath, which elicited a small smile on Claire. She rolled her eyes, and sighed, holding up her hands in an 'I give up' fashion. "You want to tell him, or should I?"
"Um…I guess you should be the one to tell him, 'cause you know all about the science parts of it," Hobbes said, wringing his hands nervously.
Claire sighed, massaging the bridge of her nose. She had expected that response from Bobby. Now she just had to find the best way to break the bad news to Darien.
*************************
"Okay," she said, clapping her hands together, and frowning. "Well, there's really no easy way to put this."
Darien looked at her in anticipation, waiting anxiously to hear more about the past he couldn't remember.
"Okay," she started, taking a deep breath. "Approximately two years ago, you were implanted with a bio-synthetic gland by your brother. The purpose of the implantation was to gather research on the effects of…quicksilver in the human body."
"Okay, question," Darien interrupted her, clearly shaken up by the news. "What's quicksilver? I'm pretty sure, from what I learned in school, that it's another name for mercury, but that stuff's deadly." He shifted in his seat. "I'm gonna assume it's not mercury, since I've survived with it for two years, but what exactly is it?"
"Okay, this is gonna seem pretty unbelievable, but this quicksilver, when it's secreted from the gland, can- well, it can…" Claire trailed off, not sure how to put it so that Darien would believe her.
"You can turn invisible," Hobbes finished for The Keeper, eliciting a shocked look on Darien's face. Darien's brow creased as he thought about what he had just heard. His face was shrouded in confusion, and a small frown played on his mouth. After a few more seconds of deliberation, a wide grin cracked on his face.
"Oh, okay, I get it- Darien has amnesia, so let's mess with his head," he shook his head, chuckling softly. "You know what? You guys had me going there, for a second." He sighed. "But, really. What were you gonna tell me?"
"We just told you," Hobbes deadpanned, hoping Darien would catch on to his serious tone.
"Okay, Lemmie get this straight," Darien said, disbelief dripping from his voice. "You want me to believe that I have a gland in my head that allows me to go invisible?" He looked from Hobbes to Claire, wondering about their level of sanity.
"Okay, you know what, Claire?" Hobbes said, turning to Claire. "We're gettin' nowhere here. I think it's about time for the show part of show 'n tell."
"I agree, but, uh…" She paused, and looked thoughtful, "How are we going to get him to generate enough adrenaline to trigger the gland?"
Hobbes caught on, "Oh, yeah. We can't go the spider route, obviously. And we got no clue what he remembers he was afraid of…"
Suddenly, Claire ran up and stood on her toes in front of Darien, cutting off Hobbes' thought mid-sentence. She grabbed the sides of Darien's head, and passionately kissed him, putting all her energy and attention into the action. After a couple of shocking seconds, she pulled back, out of breath, and watched Darien's surprised face as it faded from view.
"Whoa!" A disembodied voice cried. Claire smiled at his reaction, though she couldn't see it, and Hobbes looked at Claire in horror. "Uh, how do I get back?" Darien asked, a trace of panic in his voice.
"Okay, you just need to calm down, lower your heart rate and the adrenaline levels should start to drop." Claire told Darien, using a soothing tone of voice. She looked around the room, trying to discern just where he was, while ignoring Hobbes' struggle to keep the jealously out of his expression. Claire, though she didn't show it in her professional exterior, was torn. She couldn't believe how quickly her day had made a turn for the worse. She had been so happy when she saw that Darien was up; she had chosen that exact moment to tell him how she felt. How naïve could she get? Of course the fates would find it deeply amusing to give Darien amnesia at the time she wanted him most.
With a light tinkling sound, Darien appeared a few feet away from where he started, waving his now visible hand slowly in from of his face. With a stunned expression, he stumbled back a few steps and sat down heavily when he hit a chair. His eyes were wide open as he stared anxiously from Hobbes to Claire.
"Wha…" his voice cracked, and he sighed, aggravated, before clearing his throat to continue. "What the hell did you guys do to me?" he yelled, fear and panic trickling into his tone.
"Darien, honey, calm down. We'll just sit down, and discuss all of this, so you can take it all in," Claire suggested to Darien in a soothing tone of voice.
"Calm down, she says. Everything will turn out just fine," Darien mocked. "How the hell do you know?" he asked angrily. "You're not a freak of nature!" Darien closed his eyes tightly, trying to hold back his angry tears.
"Fawkes, just chill out," Hobbes added. He held out his hands in a reassuring motion. "We just need to sit down and talk all this out."
"What's there to talk about?" Darien retorted furiously, a scowl on his face, distorting his features. "You have no idea what it's like to be me!"
"Neither do you, see-through boy," Hobbes remarked coyly. Darien, outraged by the others' calm demeanor, quicksilvered his hand and held it out. "You find this amusing? I'm a freak," he cried, resentment and anguish dripping from his voice.
Hobbes sighed, seeing how hard Darien was taking this. He briefly wondered how Darien had reacted the first time around. "Darien, you're not a freak."
He waved his nonexistent hand. "Is this normal?" He yelled, desperation and distress filling his voice. He quickly shook off the quicksilver, leaving his hand to rest dejectedly at his side. Neither Hobbes nor Claire had an answer for him as they stood there in shock.
After a while a bitter smile made it's way onto his face, and he closed his eyes in annoyance. "Lemmie guess," he uttered cynically. "There was a malfunction in the gland."
Claire's mouth dropped open in surprise, while Hobbes just stared blankly at Darien, stunned. "Wha… how were you able to discern that?" Claire asked, astonished at Darien's insight.
Darien laughed harshly. "What, you didn't think I would be smart enough to figure it out for myself?" At Claire's bewildered yet hurt expression, Darien sighed, toning down his frustration.
"Come on. I may not be all there," he said, waving his hands quickly about his head, "and this is all still somewhat of a shock to me, but didn't you stop to think I might notice a thing like this?" He held up his hand, the index finger of which was missing.
As he looked to his hand, the tip of his middle finger disappeared as well, with a thin rim of silver around the edge. "Aw, man," he made a disgusted face, and turned back to Claire. "It'll go back after a while, right?"