"Who are you?" she asked and I felt like someone had stabbed me. I opened my mouth but a nurse came over.
"Miss, may I talk to Swan alone, please?" she asked, addressing Alice. My Alice. Alice nodded and went behind the curtain. Esme Cullen was an Ensign, married to Carlisle. She began looking over my wounds and gave me a sad look.
"Sweetie, she doesn't remember you," she whispered.
"Clearly. But why? Was I really that bad a girlfriend?" I whispered back. The only thing pulling be through this damned war was Alice.
"She was in an accident. They were experimenting and she was the subject. Something went wrong and her memories of you were erased."
I growled, my mind flying to her father. "Dammit. It was her father."
"But there's a good thing for you."
"What?"
"She thinks you're familiar. I saw it in her eyes and felt it, too."
Esme, like many, had also been a subject of Alice's father's experiments. I, too, had been part of it. I was faster now, stronger. Not only that, but I was a marksmen. Anything I was intending to shoot, I just had to hear it or think about it and my hand was guided. Helped me move up in the ranks and save a few lives.
"You think she will get her memories back?"
"It's possible. I did."
I nodded and let her continue her examination of me before she let Alice back in. The small boy in her arms turned his head toward me and I couldn't help the smile that graced my lips.
"May I hold him?" I asked. She hesitated only a second before gently passing him to me. I held him gently, careful to cradle his head and he yawned, closing his eyes.
"Huh… he isn't usually this good with strangers."
I chuckled a little. "Maybe he knows something you don't."
She tilted her head, smiling at me as I held her child gently. There was something in her eyes that I could only hope was recognition. While I had only a little faith that she would remember me, I still hoped that maybe… just maybe she and I could start over.
-xoxoxoxo-
Short and sweet. If you haven't figured it out, this is a story that takes place before Missing. Kinda a back story. There is an explaination about what happened to Leo and why you haven't seen him in Missing.