Chapter 3: The Memory of Old

Here it is another chapter. Hope you enjoy it!

The past is not something that Auggie like to tread often. Mainly because he couldn't afford it.

And else because he half hope to forget it.

He buried a huge pile of stuff deep in his memories. It seemed to be forgotten most days. Though it didn't mean that they were gone. It was there, on his shoulder. Constantly. The baggage. His baggage.

Pain. Hurt. Anger. Desperation. Disappointment. Hopes. Dreams. Frustration. Despair. Love. And more.

The price for dwelling over them was his own sanity. It was too much. Those emotions would drown him and lost him in the bottom with no certain way of ever getting out.

He had wanted to burn them. And go on like they had never existed. But a wise man he'd met in those dark days told him a story. A story that stopped him from throwing away his past completely.

The man was married with a young active four-year old boy and a baby daughter. His son was very inquisitive, he'd said. He loved to ask questions about anything. He liked to know everything. Including of his father. He'd asked what he did when he was younger and in school. The sports he played. The motorcycles he drove. His old baseball team uniform. His pictures.

He didn't have any of those. The only thing left behind was his own fading, vague memory of it. Of course, his son didn't find it satisfying.

That was when he truly regretted his anger-driven decision years ago. The same mistake that he was going to do, throwing away his old life and everything that didn't have place in his current, not so improved life. It was the logical and right thing to do in his mind.

"It's not," the older man had said. "The past is part of who you are today. And in the future, there will be people who'd love it for you."

It didn't seem to make sense back then. It was now.

His past, or rather the physical remnants of it, was neatly stacked in boxes somewhere in his apartment. On top of his closet. Out of his immediate reach so he wouldn't stumble over it accidentally. Some days he forgot they were there. Some nights he could lie alone in his bed, feeling hyper aware of their presence in his vicinity. Some times it was okay. But, there were moments when it was so hard that it hurt physically.

And today, he took out the two medium boxes out of their hiding. He felt nerveous as he climbed a stool to reach the boxes and was sure it was visible to her. It said a lot about what he's going to do. He knew one of the boxes was lighter than the other and after checking by tugging at them, he handed the lighter box to her.

"What is this? You had bomb hidden here?" she joked as she accepted the box from him.

He just laughed. Rather restrained as he carefully took the other box and secured it in one hand, using the other to hold on to the smooth wood of his closet as he stepped down off the stool.

After replacing the stool to where it belong in his kitchen, they seated facing each other on his living room floor, cross-legged with the two boxes in front of them.

"I want you to meet someone," he said, starting to open the box in front of him.

"Who?" she asked, leaning forward to see what was inside the box.

"Me," he replied, presenting the opened box and its content to her.

Brown envelopes in various size, cameras, note books, some phones, and... was that a laptop?

She looked up to his face, at a complete loss of words. What do you say to your boyfriend when he was baring his life like this?

"Auggie," she breathed.

He had an earnest look on his face. And she could feel mist filling her eyes, blurring her view of this amazing man in front of her. She tried to laugh it off. "What are these?"

"These are gifts for you," he said softly.

Annie blinked back the tears that almost fell, taking in some more deep breaths to steady her emotions. "Auggie," Words failed her and her brain vocabulary could only produce his name.

A small smile formed on his lips, softening his previously nervous stance. "Annie," he replied, in the same tone as hers. "You can open them," he added, feeling for the contents inside and taking one medium brown envelope out of it. He opened it and groped inside.

"What is that?" Annie asked, scooting herself closer to sit down next to him. He let her snuggle on his side, automatically draping his arm around her back to let her better see. "Photos?"

"Apparently yes," he felt over the smooth faces of the numerous photos. "What are in these?"

"Hmm," she mumbled, hands intruding around his own to turn around the photos. "Sunsets, seas, The Blue Mosque in Istanbul..." The photos were good. Great, actually. She never thought that he was a photographer. And a pretty good one at that. Then again he was good at anything it shouldn't have come as a surprise for her.

"These are good, Auggie," she was amazed, wondering what these photographs were doing in the box. He should've framed them and put them somewhere nice. His apartment, for starters. Or an art gallery perhaps.

"I used to like photography. Nature, places, people were my favourite objects. I'd go somewhere, pack my camera gears and hunt some photos in between of missions." He paused, rummaging through the envelopes and came across a medium sized camera bag. "These are my cameras."

Annie put the photos back inside the envelope and peeked into the Canon camera inside. Slowly and carefully, she took out the rather heavy camera, "Is it still working?" she asked.

He shrugged, "Maybe?"

She found the power button and pushed it. Astonishingly, the camera came to live. The small screen behind showed her the current setting. Absentmindedly, she took it up and directed the lens at Auggie, fixed the focus and then snapped at him.

As she studied the result, she felt bad when Auggie didn't seem to realized he'd been her lens object. Putting the camera aside, she dug into the box again.

"Anime cards. Crosswords. Cubic. A glasses?" Annie took out the glasses, never imagining Auggie wearing one. "You wore glasses?" She held the glasses over his face, trying to see how he looks in it. Not surprisingly, he looked nice as ever.

"I told you I'm a geek," he smirked.

"And a dork," she said. Playfully, she put a hand to the side of his face as a sign of warning before she put the glasses on. Smiling approvingly, she reached for the camera again.

He made a show of fixing the glasses' position and blinked. "You've got something on your cheek," he commented.

"Har," she mumbled, snapping the camera at him.

One hour later, Annie was done going through all of his things. He was a very visual person. The cameras, sketch book, and video recordings on his laptop told her that much. Annie had never seen sighted Auggie and those short movies from his days before Tikrit offered her some insight. He'd offered to put them on, but she said they could do it later. She was content to lie down on the carpet with him, going through a stack of photographs from all the places he'd visited.

"Was it in Spain? Ibiza?" Annie asked, looking at a crowded beach. She tried to see if he was in the picture, but found no one looking like him. It was rare that he was in the photos he took. Like a true photographer, she thought.

"Ibiza? Hmm it was a short vacation, right after I finished my study in MIT. A gift from my parents," he told her. There was something odd in his tone, but she shrugged it off as nothing.

"I went there on a summer with Danielle, she was..." her words trailled off as she caught sight of a young pretty brunette in a turquoise summer dress, a black camera bag slung in one of her shoulders and she was smiling brightly under the shade of a dark blue fedora.

The ladies weren't known to be able to resist August Anderson. That was a well-known fact and legend throughout the agency. She knew she wasn't his first girlfriend. Hell, she could be his 100th for all she knew. But, there was an unfamiliar feeling coursing through her as she looked at the picture of this beautiful young woman who obviously, once, a part of his life. If this woman were here today, Annie was sure she would not stand a chance.

The women she knew had ever had a relationship with him were Natasha Petrovna and Parker Rowland. And Liza Hearn, if their relationship had ever been real. And she wasn't too naive to think that he didn't have any before the Russian rebel. But she'd never thought that he was the kind of man who keeps photos of past girlfriends. And he really wasn't. So, this woman must had been special to him. Even more so than either Natasha or Parker.

"You found her," he stated, reading her silence.

"I guess," she mumbled, glancing to him then back to the photo. She turned it around to see a handwritten note, his writing: My Eloise, Ibiza, Spain, 13 September, 2003. "She is beautiful, Aug."

"She was." He confirmed, causing her to do a double take. Was, past tense. "Her name's Eloise Cartwright," he continued before she could say anything else. "We went to the same school, lived in the same neighbourhood and all that. But we only started dating when we were both in college. I wasn't all into that ladies-man stuff back then, you know."

It was a sad sombre tone, she realized. "What happened?" She asked quietly, now turning on her stomach so she could look at his face.

He sighed softly, composing his jumbled thoughts as the memory of being with Eloise for almost three years came back to him. "She was sick, very sick. I could remember the feel of her bone in her hands, cheeks. Her short, shallow breaths. Her grimaced as another needle pierce through her delicate skin. She was so thin." The mist in his eyes had turned into tears, falling freely down the side of his cheeks. She didn't dare wiping them as she could feel her heart constrict painfully and the wet moist in her eyes, too.

"She was in the hospital for six weeks and three days," he took deep breath and Annie took his hand in hers and kissed it, silently encouraging him to go on. "Everyone thought she was getting better, the cancer was removed. And she really looked brighter, more alive. Then... My classes were starting, so I wasn't in town. Her brother called me that late morning in February..."

Annie buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms round him tightly. The pain in his eyes and face was unbearable for her to see. All she wanted to do was suck it away and make him feel better. But she knew there was nothing that she could do. This Eloise girl had long gone from this world.

"I've dated some girls before her," he started again, a hand rubbing her back absentmindedly. "But Eloise was different. She was full of energy and spirit. Always ready for some fun and adventure. She'd say yes in a second if I'd asked for a trip in the weekend, not minding where we were going," he paused again before continuing, "She grew on people quickly, especially on my mother. I didn't introduce many girls to her."

He'd taken her to his home just last month for a quick weekend visit. Aside from Adrian and Laura Anderson, she'd also meet two of his brothers and their family who lived in the area. Now, she could recall a young man named Eddie Cartwright joined them for barbeque on Saturday afternoon. Was he the brother?

"All I remember from her is her dark brown hair and hazel eyes. If I know what's brown and hazel anymore," he laughed, but there was no humour to it.

"You know her," Annie said softly.

"I loved her, that's why I keep a picture of her around long after she passed away. I just think you should know that."

"I understand," she mumbled reassuringly, squeezing his hand. She definitely understand him. The pain of losing someone you loved by death was familiar to her. He had three years with Eloise. She had three months with Simon. But the pain was a universal feeling they both shared.

"You have nothing to worry about," Auggie assured her.

"I'm not worried," she lied. She was a woman after all. And insecurities were bound to affect her from times to times.

He turned her around, laying her on her back, he hovered above her body. "Really?"

Her hands came up to cup his face, inadvertently wiping the remnants of his tears. "I am a woman in love, I can handle my worry."

"Good," he said. "But it's better if you aren't."

"I'll try,"

A smile formed at his lips before he descended on her and kissed her. The photographs laid, scattered around them and neglected for the moment. Auggie would always have a special place for those memories and Eloise. But they were his past and she knew he wasn't hung up on a death girlfriend. And she wasn't either.

I've been short on time last month, but I've been able to write on scratch. And I hope I'm going to be able to post a bit more sooner rather than later.

Thanks everyone who've read, favourited, reviewed, followed, etc. You all are so great to me.

PA