AUTHOR: Glinda

TITLE: Amnesia

CATEGORY: angsty,

PAIRING: S/J (I just CANNOT write anything else)

WARNING: PG-13 Swearing, extreme angst

SEASON: Any

SPOILERS: Solitudes, Any episodes featuring Daniel in lecture mode or mentioning Jack's cabin - there'll be more in later parts.

DISCLAIMER: Not mine, don't own anything. Just a poor little Uni. student trying to stay sane by letting her imagination run wild. Not making any money...just doin this for fun! Plz don't sue!

AUTHOR'S NOTES: And now for something completely different. Another non-canon piece. I try and steer away from those but - this idea's been haunting me for a while. Since before I started writing 'No You're Not' actually (which I PROMISE I WILL update VERY soon)! The background will be explained as we go along - If people want more that is. Be good little readers...write me a review! I'm sad and pathetic - I live for the damn things!
The sky is too blue. There was a time, before I came here, when I'd have laughed at you if you'd told me that was possible...I think. That's the problem I suppose, I only think, I don't know. I can't appreciate the beauty around me because I have nothing to compare it to. You don't appreciate tropical heat if you've never been stuck in a snowstorm...

FLASHBACK

Snow everywhere. Not falling - fallen. So long ago it's formed solid walls. Air bubble in a 1000ft-snow drift. Pain, everywhere. Nothing but pain. Broken leg, cracked ribs, gut wrenching agony. Cold. Pain fading into it. Not good. Must move. Pain back. Too much. STOP! Another person. Female. They'll help - they have too...their job to help? Speak! Move lips. Vocalize. Attract attention, don't scare...
"Cold, so cold" warmth round me...Oww...pain in ribs, not mattering, warmth good. Fight cold. Stay alive. Must tell her something - wish could remember what: sure it was something important...
"I know. It's all right. You can sleep now." No, mustn't sleep. Never wake up. Must fight it. Rescue will come. But tired, so tired...

END FLASHBACK

Weird. What was that? It was so vivid. A memory? Maybe. NOW I appreciate the heat! I was right. You need comparison. It's not the first time either. Periodically memories of people, places, events - often with previously unrealised certainties like "I'll never be too warm again or complain about the cold. EVER!" - make their presence felt along with a Pandora's box of feelings.

FLASHBACK

Young man. Glasses, floppy hair. Lecturing me on Pandora's Box. Myth about origin of death. Punishment for stealing fire from the Gods in the form of a beautiful woman - Pandora. Empathy. I'm being punished for my crime by being tortured by the presence of a beautiful woman I can't have...

END FLASHBACK

Sometimes they fade, sometimes they stay.

I'm not alone here. Most of the others don't know who they are either - the others want to forget. So the names we have are not our own - she gave them to us. She's the first thing I remember - that any of us do. Waking up on this beach - aching everywhere - to see her concerned face, half hidden by shoulder length blonde hair. I don't know how she moved me...She never moved me...She never asks for our help with new arrivals and, though she's not exactly a small woman at 5ft 10" (feet? Inches? Measurements, huh?), some of the guys are well over 6ft (AGAIN!!!) and not exactly frail - myself included!

It's a peaceful life. Gathering driftwood, tending the vegetable garden she's planted, building shelters for the new arrivals and ourselves. I know some of the others find it boring, got this incomprehensible feeling that there's something far more important that they should be doing. We're all pretty beat up so maybe we were in a war? Maybe they just feel they should still be fighting it. Not me, I guess I must've earned my rest. Whenever one of them mentions it I shake my head and disagree - I'm done fighting now, just let me watch the tide go in and out and give me good company and I'm happy. She takes care of me more than the others. I figure she knows who I used to be. Sometimes I wish she'd tell me. Sometimes I figure I'm better off not knowing. It's almost like a dream. She sits beside me on the beach. We don't say a word. We rarely talk: we don't need to. I feel like I've known her forever and tell her so. She rests her head on my shoulder and our fingers entwine. She murmurs something, so quietly that if we weren't so close I wouldn't have heard - but we are, and I do.
"Welcome to our forever." Its dawn and beautiful, we've been here all night. Neither of us sleeps much. Almost like we're both afraid that we'll wake up and not be here anymore. We kiss - and it's gentle, familiar, perfect. If this is a dream then I don't ever want to wake up. Neither of us does.