A Memory Lost

By TwinEnigma


Blanket disclaimer: Anything you recognize, except for my OCs and the plot, I don't own. I do this for fun and absolutely no profit.


II: Nameless

Whiteness.

The world was white when he opened his eyes for the first time. It was bright, blindingly brilliant. He blinked, trying to see in the harsh light. His head felt strange, all full of cotton and stuffy, and he couldn't make out where he was.

A woman's face suddenly appeared above him, blurry and surrounded in a halo of gold. Voices drifted around and above him, in and out of hearing. "Doctor! Doctor, he's awake!"

He tried to speak, but his mouth was dry and all that emerged was a weak wheedling noise. The world was starting to go white again and the woman's face was getting blurrier.

"Can you hear me? Stay awake!"

The world faded, becoming white again.

"We have to keep him awake," a faint male voice sounded above him. Fingers pressed against the skin of his face, holding open his left eye. There was a blurry figure standing over him that he couldn't quite make out. Slowly, the figure drew a small, slender white rod and held it over his eye. A single point of bright light burst from the end and he flinched, trying to close his eye. The figure continued to hold his eye open and he instinctively tried to push himself away.

"Easy! Easy!" a woman's voice said, growing steadily clearer. A hand pressed against his arm and another lightly pressed against his shoulder. The woman's voice sounded again, now very clear: "You're safe now."

He stopped, blinking as his eyes slowly adjusted to the bright room. He could now make out the figures that had been standing over him. To his left, a man in a white coat stood by, holding a small white stick in his hand. There was a pin over the man's right breast pocket and a stethoscope in his pocket. On his right, a woman in blue with burnished gold hair and countless freckles smiled at him. It was her hands that pressed him down. There was a pin over her right breast pocket as well.

"Well, how are you feeling, young man?" the man asked.

He blinked again, looking up curiously at the man. "I... I... don't know," he answered unsteadily. His entire body was sore all over and the left side of his head throbbed dully. He felt strange, as though he was missing something but couldn't quite identify it. "My head hurts."

"That's to be expected," the man told him rather matter-of-factly. He held up the little white rod and pressed down on a small metal strip on the side. Instantly, a bright light burst from the small rod. "I want you to follow the light with your eyes. Can you do that for us?"

It seemed a strange request, but he did as the man in white asked and followed the light as the man moved it in different directions. He was surprised when this little exercise abruptly ended; he was very curious about why the man in white had asked him to follow a light with just his eyes and was wondering about the little light-rod.

"Excellent, excellent," the man in white said, smiling as he put the little rod into his breast pocket. He picked up a cream-coloured folder and opened it, jotting something down inside. "You're a very lucky young man, you know."

He stared at the man, feeling quite bewildered. "I am?"

"You were in an accident," the man in white explained, closing the folder. "In fact, it was a very severe truck accident. You sustained a heavy blow to the head – along with a few broken bones, among other things – and have been in a coma for nearly two weeks. Frankly, it's a miracle you're alive."

He knew what a truck was and what it was used for, but he couldn't recall ever being in an accident or even why a truck might have hit him. It all seemed very odd to him but it did seem to explain why he was sore all over.

"I am Doctor Turner," the man continued. He was a very neat man, stern and taciturn; he highly doubted that the doctor was a man to panic easily. "And this is Nurse Sparrow."

The woman in blue smiled broadly, revealing teeth like pearls. He was surprised by this, having expected teeth like those of a shark; he couldn't explain why he had thought that the nurse would have a shark's smile and now it seemed an unreasonable notion – save for one small part of him that still felt uneasy by that almost maddened grin. Her eyes held a wild edge in their depths; it was almost as though she was one of the birds that were her namesake. Still, her eyes were easy to read, full of a mixture of relief and concern.

"Now, we're in a bit of a fix here," Doctor Turner said, frowning slightly. "When you were admitted, we were unable to locate any sort of identification on your person..."

Nurse Sparrow shot the doctor a scolding glance and quickly interrupted, "Your name, dearie. We'd like to know your name. I'll bet your parents must be sick to death worrying."

"Of c-course... It's..." he suddenly paused, blinking in confusion. What was it? He scowled, narrowing his eyes as he tried to recall it. He knew, somehow, that he must have a name because everyone had a name and that was just the way things were, but what it could be he did not know. "...I can't remember."

The doctor and the nurse were momentarily taken aback.

"Do you remember your parents?" Doctor Turner asked, his eyes betraying a growing anxiety. "Their names, what they look like... anything?"

He shook his head and it occurred to him briefly that he wasn't even sure what he looked like. He raised his hands, examining them carefully. He noticed that his skin was very pale and his fingers were long and thin. His left arm was covered in jagged shiny pink scars, while his right was bound in a very stiff and heavy substance that looked like rough cloth. A tube disappeared into his left hand under some bandages and he followed it with his eyes up to a clear bag that hung off a metal rod on his bed; he didn't know what it was, but it made him a little uncomfortable. "Doctor, can I have a mirror? I want to see my face."

"Jackie?" the doctor gave the nurse an inquisitive look.

Nurse Sparrow nodded and hastily left the room. She returned shortly, a small round compact clutched in her hands. She opened it and gently handed it to him.

The face that greeted him was pale and drawn, haunting bright green eyes staring straight back at him. There was a plaster on the left side of his forehead and a few faint scratches on his cheeks: they might have been cuts not too long ago. His hair was jet-black and unkempt, hanging in shaggy uneven tangles around his face. It looked like someone had been trying to cut away portions of his hair to get at something.

"You had several severe lacerations on your face and scalp," Doctor Turner said quietly. "We had to give you stitches."

He ran his fingers through his hair, fingers trailing over new scars. The left side of his chest ached sharply and he drew a hissing breath. "My chest..."

"It's your ribs. They were broken," the doctor explained. "I'm going to have Nurse Sparrow go get you something for the pain, all right?"

He nodded, wincing. He wasn't quite able to follow what the doctor said next; instead, he rolled his head to the left and watched as the nurse exited the room. There were two other beds in the room, both containing the forms of younger boys. He couldn't see the furthest bed too well and, instead, examined the occupant of his immediately neighbouring bed.

A fragile-looking small boy rested in the bed, his chest rising and falling shallowly. Clear tubes ran into the boy's nose and disappeared among a nest of machines and wires. There was a metal rod attached to the boy's bed too and, like his, it had a clear bag hanging from one of several hooks on the top, with a small tube running down to the boy's right arm. The boy's left arm was folded over his chest, completely bound in what appeared to be the same stuff that currently covered his own right arm.

The most curious thing, however, was that the younger boy also had messy jet-black hair. He held up the compact again, looking at that unfamiliar face in the small mirror, and then closed it, focusing on the boy again. "Doctor Turner? Who's that?" he asked. His chest gave another sharp pain.

"The poor thing," the doctor sighed, turning to glance at the other bed. "He and his cousin both lost their family in that accident. Seems this lad's parents died several years ago in a car crash and he'd been living with his aunt and uncle. He and his cousin haven't woken up yet."

Nurse Sparrow returned, holding a small metal tray. "Mister Evans is back and pacing a hole into the waiting room floor again. Jimmy says it's your turn to talk to him," she said, an amused smile on her lips as she drew closer.

"Bloody hell," Doctor Turner muttered, starting for the door. "That man is wound tighter than a spring!" With another string of muted oaths, the doctor disappeared from the room.

The nurse shook her head slightly, still smiling, and put the tray down. She went about checking the clear bag and tube for a moment, and then removed a needle from the metal tray. "I'm going to give you some morphine, dearie. This should help with the pain," she said in a comforting tone of voice.

He watched as she removed a small blue cap from the needle and tapped the side, depressing the plunger slightly. "Um, Nurse Sparrow?" he started, his cheeks burning slightly, though he couldn't for the life of him understand why.

She pursed her lips a moment, finding a small y-shaped piece on the tube. "It's Jackie."

"Sorry," he said, his cheeks burning even more fiercely than before. "Um... Do you know anything about me? Anything at all?"

The nurse inserted the needle into the protruding end of the y-shaped piece and slowly pressed down on the plunger. "There's not much to tell, dearie." She sighed then and withdrew the needle before continuing. "The accident was two weeks ago. A truck carrying steel pipes overturned not too far from here and spilled its cargo. You were pulled out from under the spilled pipes – the crossing guard said you were in a hurry to get across the road and didn't see it coming until it was far too late."

He wondered where he was going that day, what was so important that he had been hurrying to get across that street.

Nurse Sparrow – no, Jackie put the needle back into the tray and continued steadily. "You were a right mess when you came in, dearie... We honestly weren't too sure you were going to survive that first night. But one night turned into two and two into three... Well, you get the point."

He nodded slightly to show that he understood and suppressed the urge to shudder. It felt like icy water was spreading through his veins from his hand.

"As soon as we discovered you didn't have anything in the way of identification, we saved anything that might help us find out who you are," she explained patiently. "You had a few old coins in your pocket – gold and silver, that sort of thing – a battered old blank diary and a few pounds. I'll bring 'em by sometime. We also managed to save and clean the patches from your school uniform and the costume you were wearing over it."

He gave her an odd look, not quite grasping what she meant. "A costume?"

Jackie gave him a toothy grin. "It was Halloween. You were dressed up as a wizard or something, dearie... Looked like you'd just come from school, too, and just tossed it on over your uniform. The hospital put out adverts in all the papers asking if anyone matching your description was missing, but there hasn't been much luck."

"Oh," he said quietly.

The nurse gave him an odd look and picked up the tray. "Try to get some rest, dearie. We'll find your folks, you'll see," she said and left the room.

It would be some time before he drifted into a shallow sleep.


AN: Ok, ok... I know you're going to have questions. Firstly, the nameless patient's identity is hinted at throughout the chapter and those seeking more solid clues should look at what was in his pockets. Two, the tubes are IVs. Three, Doctor Turner gives the patient a brief neurological test when he's waving around the light. Fourth, Nurse Sparrow and her 'shark-smile' will come into play later. (Just to warn you, my muse inspired me to do an entirely separate spinoff with the good doctor, his family and the nurse.) Reviews are good!