A/N: *Slight Spoiler Warning* Okay, some people have emailed me directly asking about the spell Alicia cast on herself. It's a forgetting spell. Alicia uses it to forget about her powers (which she believed to be the cause of everything wrong with her.) But the spell worked so that everything that caused her sadness was erased from her memory. Which is why in the earlier chapters, she couldn't remember anything about her former life- or even who she was. At the end of this chapter, she forgets even her own identity because she thinks that she is at fault for... yeah. =)

And to clarify- I thought the last chapter was crappy because I felt that I deviated from the style of the previous chapters. I tend to write simply- with short sentences or phrases. I felt like the dialogue between Galadriel and Alicia was dragging and that there wasn't a clear path to meaning. Agh....

Okay, sorry for babbling. Read on!

Chapter 20- What Once Was Lost

The sound of glass breaking.

The screech of metal twisting against itself.

A baby's cry cut off in mid-scream.

The sight of blood flowing down onto the dark gray pavement.

I love you, Alice... .Alice, wake up. Alice, open your eyes....I love you, Alice, don't close your eyes...

Dizziness, pain.... agonizing pain... and then....

And then....

Alicia sat up, gasping for air.

It was a nightmare.

Just a nightmare.

For a few minutes she sat in her bed, in the dark, trying to calm her furiously beating heart. She touched her face and found that her cheeks and forehead were damp.

Tears and sweat- the elixir of the heartbroken.

Alicia closed her eyes and tried to shake off the images that burned in her mind. The horrible, ugly images that seemed to replay themselves over and over and over....

It was just a nightmare.

Alicia opened her eyes and looked down to the other side of the large bed she slept in.

The other side was empty.

The nightmare was nothing compared to what she faced now- in reality.

She touched the empty side, her face twisting up into an expression of pain beyond imagining and barely choked back a sob.

He was gone.

A pale shaft of moonlight from the window hit the surface of her wedding ring and made it sparkle. For a moment, Alicia stared at it, transfixed.

Light reflecting on metal.

Metal twisting against metal.

Alicia drew her hand back and flung the blankets off of her body. She flicked on the lamp and blinked at the sudden intrusion of light on her eyes. She stood up, shivering despite the warmth of the room and walked to the closet.

The house was so unbearably empty.

She couldn't stand it anymore- being alone in the large three bedroom house. A house that had once been filled with laughter and chatter and...

And the sound of a baby's happy babble.

She got dressed quickly- grabbing a red shirt, black pants and a long gray jacket without much thought. She grabbed her keys and then left the room, meaning to go straight down the stairs and into her car.

But of course, she could never just do that anymore.

She paused at the last door in the hallway, before the stairs and lingered in front of it. With one trembling hand, she reached down and turned the cold, hard doorknob and stepped inside the room, flicking the light switch with one smooth move.

She hadn't touched this room since the...

Since The Accident.

His crib still stood in the center of the room as if waiting for him to come back and sleep in it. The rocking chair lay untouched and still, the book in the seat unopened for weeks. Her mother's favorite tale, which had became hers as well. Alicia had hoped Tristan would grow up loving the story as she did. Well, she had hoped many things for her son, hadn't she? Hopes that would never become realized. A light blanket of dust had settled on every surface and still... still she hadn't wiped it off.

There was no point, really.

Tristan would never come back.

He was dead.

They both were.

Tristan and Matthew.

Matthew and Tristan.

Both.

Dead.

Alicia stood in the doorway and felt the heavy, crushing grief bear down on her. It was familiar now but still not welcomed. Its touch was cold and almost numbing and she wished that the numbness would be complete. She did not want to feel anymore because feeling meant pain and pain meant remembering and remembering was...

It was horrible.

It had been almost a month since The Accident. The car accident that had claimed the life of her husband and seven month old son... the accident that was slowly killing Alicia herself. They had been driving home from her parent's house. It had been nighttime and Matthew had been tired. The other car came from nowhere and Matthew had swerved... but too late.

It was too late.

Their car had been tossed in the air like a toy. Like one of Tristan's light plastic toys... Strangely enough, the crash itself hadn't been so bad. It was as if at the last moment, the car had been cradled in the air by a strong gust of wind and then set down. But by then the damage had been done.

Tristan, who been awakened in the backseat by the sound of the impact, had started to cry and now... now the air was still and eerily quiet.

She winced then as she stood in the room, remembering the pain she had felt as she tried to get up from the passenger seat. Her head throbbed painfully and the side of her face felt swollen and hot. One eye seemed to be covered with blood for her vision was slightly red and blurry.

She remembered looking to the side and seeing that her window had been broken... shattered into a million pieces. The sleepiness came then... the impending darkness... and Alicia stopped struggling to get up from her seat, stopped trying to fumble with her seatbelt with blood-slicked fingers and started to let her eyes close.

And then she was being shaken.

Matthew.

(

Alicia slumped back in her seat and groaned as a shooting pain wove through her body, up her back and into her arms. She just wanted to let go... to let the pain envelope her and let the darkness....

No, Alicia, wake up! Don't close your eyes!

Matthew's desperate voice.

Matthew's hand shaking her shoulder.

Alice! Alice! Stay awake! Don't close your eyes!

A bone-chilling gust of wind burst through the shattered window and the feeling was like an icy slap to the face, trying to keep her awake..

I love you, Alice... Alice, wake up. Alice, open your eyes....I love you, Alice, don't close your eyes...

Another gust of wind, this time more powerful and even colder.

Her eyes flew open and she turned her head to face her husband.

His face was horribly scratched and bloody but his eyes..... his bright blue eyes seemed to cut through the fog in her head. The wind around her howled and she could feel the pain in the side of her face lessen.

Alicia muttered. Her mouth felt thick and she could taste a salty warmth on her tongue.

Blood.

Where is.... Tris.... tan...

Alice... Alice... stay awake...

Matt... where is Tris...

Alice, Tristan is.... Alice, he's....Oh God, I can't... he'll be okay, just stay awake! Just stay alive for me, okay? Don't close your eyes....

Sounds of sirens filled the air.

Sounds of her husband's harsh, dry sobs.

But Tristan wasn't crying.

Where was her son?

As the sirens grew louder, the wind died down to a breeze and a soft, warm rain began to fall. The gentle drops were swept into the car and Alicia felt the blood being washed from her face. Her eyes fluttered as she felt her body being warmed by the rain.

She felt Matthew's hand clutch hers and she squeezed it automatically.

And then she was being pulled away, pulled out of the car by unseen hands, being strapped down onto a stretcher and she finally closed her eyes.... )

Her son had died in the impact and her husband, she found out later, had died en route to the hospital. Strange, how she was the only survivor. Strange how she had survived at all. Her injuries had been far worse than Matthew's and yet she had healed completely within a few days.

But none of that mattered to Alicia. In fact, she barely even acknowledged it at all. How could she think of herself now- when her house was so empty and silent? When the bodies that once moved about in this house were now cradled by the earth below? She had been forced to place all of her hopes and dreams into boxes that would soon rot away with the years to come. Hopes and dreams that would rot and one day fade, just like the bodies within their coffins.

And yet there was something even more horrible than the loss of her husband and son. Something so terrible that she could not bring herself to tell even her father and mother, whom she loved and trusted with all her heart. It was so terrible that it gnawed on her thoughts, day in and day out, with no respite.

She was beginning to forget them.

Their faces... the sound of their voices... she beginning to forget all of it. Even now, surrounded by the things that Matthew and Tristan had once loved- she could barely feel their presence. In her memories, their faces were becoming blurs and their voices were distant whispers, genderless and emotionless. It was as if a great and all-encompassing darkness was slowly coming down on her mind. Only in her dreams did she see them clearly and even those glimpses faded the moment her eyes opened. Something was happening to her- something she could not explain. She was forgetting too quickly those who she had loved and lost and it was not right.

It was unnatural.

It was not fair!

Alicia uttered a small cry of surprise and touched her mouth. She hadn't realized that she had been biting on her bottom lip and now it was bleeding. Brought back to the present time and out of her thoughts, she turned around and walked out of the room, flicking off the light switch before closing the door. She walked down the stairs, jingling her keys so that the air was not too quiet. As she made her way to the front door, she stopped again.

Where was she going to go? In the middle of the night, where would she go?

Alicia closed her eyes briefly and sighed heavily. She knew what she had to do, she had been thinking about doing it for the last three weeks, ever since she had watched the coffins of her son and her husband being lowered into the ground. She knew that there was only one way out of her pain, knew it ever since the first night that she had woken up screaming because of a nightmare.

She let her keys fall from her fingers and drop to the floor. She wouldn't need them anymore. She would never need them again for she was not coming back to this empty, loveless house.

She opened the door and walked out of the house for the last time.

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"The spell was working even then." Galadriel said softly. "Even then did it work to erase the reasons for her sadness. Her memories of her son and beloved were fading from her mind and she was losing them for a second time."

Legolas dared not breath, afraid to create even a slight ripple in the water. What he was seeing... was... it was...

"So much pain." he said in a strangled whisper. "And anger and sorrow."

"And yet her grief was not as great as it would have been if it were not for the spell." Galadriel said softly. "Legolas, do you not understand the gravity of this moment? The spell has been broken and what once was lost has now been found- what once was bound has now been released. Grief, ten-fold, a hundred-fold- in her heart and mind. She remembers now, dear Prince, but yet she still feels as a mortal would."

Legolas tore his eyes away from the pool and stared at Galadriel.

"What do you speak of, Lady?" he asked. "What do you mean?"

"Do you think elves are the only creatures that can die of a broken heart?"

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The wind seemed to pick up suddenly, as she walked on towards her destination. The house had been built about a mile or so away from a cliff. She had wanted a secluded piece of land when Matthew and her first started searching for a home. She had wanted trees and grass and fresh air and the moment she had laid eyes on the two story, brick house she knew it was perfect for raising a family. It was a fairytale-like house, a house that could be found in children's tales. With a white picket fence and a small pond in the backyard, it was a perfect place for reading stories and dreaming.

And the view was... it was incredible, to say the least.

But now the house was empty and Alicia no longer saw it as her fairytale home. Now it was a dark and brooding thing, cold and hard and unfeeling and she hated it. She could not stand it anymore. Her parents had offered to let her come back home but for some reason, she didn't feel as if she could go back there. Her mother and father, Karl and Lynn, were the only two people left in the world that she loved.

She hoped that they would understand- prayed that her parents wouldn't grieve too hard when they found out what she did.

What she was about to do.

The wind howled and Alicia pulled her coat tighter around her, shivering as the icy air touched her face. It seemed as if it were trying to stop her from continuing on and Alicia gritted her teeth, determined to continue. She saw the edge of the cliff ahead of her, her path brightened by the stars above and she moved on, unwilling to let something as small as the weather change her mind. It took longer than she had expected, for suddenly it seemed that her path was blocked by various rocks and pebbles. She stumbled a few times but kept walking.

And then, she was there.

Standing at the edge of a long fall down.

It would be fitting, wouldn't it? To hurl herself into the abyss. Just like Alice but instead of waking up in a wonderland, Alicia wouldn't wake up. She would be free of everything- all the pain and loss. If she were to wake up then it would be in a dream and she would be once more in the arms of her husband, holding her child.

Just like Alice... falling.... falling... falling down.

As if by magic (a silly thought, really, for there was no such thing), the wind stopped and the air was once again still and quiet. A million twinkling lights greeted her, the lights of the city below, and she smiled slightly. The world was perfect in that one moment in time, beautiful and kind once again and Alicia was glad that it was the last sight she would ever see. She closed her eyes and thought hard, trying to conjure the image of her husband and her son, the last time they had been together in joy. Matthew was not perfect, nor was he exceptionally handsome but he was... he was everything to Alicia. With his soft, brown curls and easy smile, his long lanky frame that seemed so awkward at first sight but moved with a hidden grace all its own. Matthew was everything to her, he could make her laugh with just a wink and one twist of his crooked mouth. His face, perhaps, would not draw a second glance from anyone else but to Alicia, his too-boyish features were beautiful. And his eyes were so bright and filled with life.... her son had been born with his father's eyes. That same shade of unbelievable blue. Tristan, with his father's brown hair and his mother's gentle features. Her perfect little baby boy.

All gone.

Both of them gone.

Alicia opened her eyes and let the tears that had collected in her eyes fall. The grief she felt was overwhelming now; heart-wrenching and all-encompassing. It was all she knew at that moment and her world was colored with its dreary brush. So much grief... and hate. Hate towards herself for being alive, for surviving. Hate and not pity or compassion- absolute and complete hate because it was her fault that she was suffering. Her fault that she was in so much pain.... her fault for not ending it sooner. She hated herself and....

And then she let out a startled cry.

She leapt off the edge of the cliff when she realized that she had forgotten her own name.