9. WHO AM I AGAIN?


Sparhawk blearily opened his eyes, his surroundings white, and alarmingly fuzzy. His head swam with the wealth of information that he had gleaned off his future daughter. Of days past. This was going to get confusing. He rubbed his eyes to clear them, but it did nothing to help. Feeling a foreboding grow uneasily within him, he squinted and things became just a little bit clearer. He sighed. He, or at least this body, was shortsighted. A man with dark swarthy skin, wearing loose blue clothing, immediately came to his side, a wide smile on his face. "Well hello, look who's awake!" he exclaimed in a tone that made Sparhawk want to grimace. If this was how people were going to treating him, what on account of his current body, the foreseeable future wasn't going to be pleasant.

Apparently, he must have, because the man's look changed to one of concern. "You hurt anywhere, little buddy?" he asked, laying a warm hand on his forehead. Oh yes, he was. Little buddy indeed. Shaking aside his injured ego, Sparhawk shook his head in the negative. The man stood and held up a couple of fingers. "How many fingers am I holding up?" he asked. "Two" Sparhawk replied, "Blurred" he added. The man nodded, frowning. "Did you wear glasses before this, champ?"

Sparhawk did not know what he meant by that, so he decided to make his confusion known. "What?"

"Glasses."

"I...don't know."

The frown grew bigger. "Hmm... Well, we'll get to that. I'm Nurse Joy. What's your name, kiddo?"

Well, seeing as neither he nor Aphrael seemed to know the name of the body he was inhabiting and whatever connections the kid might have had in this world, in a moment of wild inspiration, he decided to feign a loss of memory. He just hoped his acting skills could hold up. However terrible they were.

"I...don't know," he said, trying to sound confused, which wasn't hard given the circumstances, and trying to look how a child should in the same, say frightened and fuddled, in which he was probably failing spectacularly. The grim countenance of a Pandion knight did not lend itself to looking scared and helpless.

Nurse Joy, a strange name now that he thought about it, seemed entirely unconvinced. Damn. He knelt down so he was eye level with Sparhawk, oh the shame, and looking him straight in the eye said, in quite a serious tone, "Now I know your mommy told you not to talk to strangers, but you're in a hospital and you should never lie to doctors. Now tell me, what's your name buddy?"

Well, that answered a few questions. Now while Sparhawk was of the opinion that lying to healers was bad form, he couldn't think of any better way to avoid complications later on and decided to bull his way through this. "I don't remember!" Maybe sounding panicky would help.

Apparently, he hadn't sounded quite right. Nurse Joy just frowned deeper and left the rather small radius of clear vision his body's busted eyes seemed to have. Was this how shortsighted people felt, perpetually in a fog?

The big man, though given his current bodily dimensions, just about any adult was going to be big, returned with a relatively smaller, pleasant looking woman dressed in the same strange clothes. She stepped forward and knelt down, God, how he wished people would stop doing that!

"Hi," she began in a soft, comforting voice, "I'm Alice. Would you like some candy?" No, he would not like some candy, but kids did. He nodded, his usual expression making it look rather grave. "Oh, how cute!" she exclaimed, a smile lighting up her face and Sparhawk felt his face flush, mortified. But yes, it was generally cute when little children tried to look serious.

Alice pulled out a shiny red ball on a stick and held it out to him. He reached out and took it, putting it in his mouth. It was tasteless.


" , resident Paediatrician, ' Trust Hospital, grabbed the unwrapped lolly from the boy's mouth and gave it a quick wipe with a bit of spirit. Maybe he was still groggy from his seizure? Removing the wrapper, she handed it back to him and he took it back silently and put it in his mouth. She expected a bit of joy, a little smile as the flavored sugar began to do its work, but the boy's face could have been carved from stone, except for the cute little bulge in one cheek. Okay, that was enough softening him up.

"Can you tell me your name, now? I told you mine." Hah! Now he would feel obligated to reciprocate. Not exactly the best use of her skills gained from that correspondence course on negotiation, but it was better than nothing.

"I don't remember," he replied, slurping on the lolly.

Dang, this kid was a tough nut to crack.

And so it went back and forth and back, as they tried to quiz him on various aspects of his life, What's your name, Where do you live, How old are you, Where do you go to school, Did he have any brothers or sisters, Could he tell them about his friends etcetera, etcetera. Sparhawk mulishly maintained that he did not know and after what seemed like an hour or so, Alice and Joy were forced to consider the possibility that the stone-faced boy had really lost his memories and was not just lying outright.

"What do we do?" asked Nurse Joy, scratching his curly hair.

"Not much." replied Alice, "Run a few basic tests and hand him over to protective services, I guess."

"Protective services?"

"Yes. Notice all the bruises on him? The malnutrition? I'm thinking the amnesia was brought on by a battering. It could improve, given time. But for now, protective services."


Dadoosh. Back to our timeline. Read and review, please.