CHAPTER 16:
The Return

Harry thrashed in his sleep. Whatever it was that was chasing him in his dream was going to catch up with him. His dream self jumped out of the way of the monster, and his real self rolled right off the bed and fell on the floor with a hard thud. He opened his bleary eyes and closed them again before falling back into a dark and disturbed sleep.

He wasn't aware of anything again until late the next morning. He heard the door of his room open, so he tried to open his eyes to see who was there. He blinked many times to try to clear away the fog, but it didn't work. All he could discern was a shadowy figure that would not come into focus.

"Harry?" a male voice full of concern asked.

He turned his head toward the sound. In that position on the floor, he looked to Steve Ford like a little puppy. This puppy even had shaggy unkempt hair.

Steve smiled at him before speaking. "You were late for your morning therapy session."

Ford bent down closer to the sometime magician who was sprawled on the hard wood floor. "Were you entertaining the ladies all night or something?" he joked when Harry still didn't answer.

"Headache," he supplied after much silence.

His eyes were still unfocused, but he lifted his head toward Steve, who put his hands on Harry's head with the gentleness of a parent caring for his child. If Ford could have given him back all his memories, he would have done it long ago. Instead, he could only offer his concern.

"I'm worried about you. Maybe we should take you to the doctor. How long have you been having these headaches?"

Harry sat up, the sheets pooling around his naked hips. He looked directly at his friend, seeing him clearly for the first time since he walked in the room, and answered, "On and off for about two weeks."

A surprised look quickly passed over Steve's face. "Harry," he said in reproach, "you have to take care of yourself!"

"No one else will," he replied in pitiful agreement. "I don't have any family."

"You don't know that. Or do you? Did you get some of your memories back?" Ford added with a hopeful tone.

"No," he said as he slowly stood up. The sheets fell completely away from him, but he felt no shame. His mind was occupied on things other than his exposed nudity, and he looked like a caged tiger pacing his cell. "Nothing makes any more sense to me than it did before. I am no closer to learning who I was. All I have is confusion."

Steve took his thought into consideration before asking, "What about the person you are? Do you know who he is?"

He smiled ruefully. "Sometimes."

"That's a start. Now you need to make sure there's nothing wrong with you." Steve put his hands up before Harry could make a wisecrack. "Physically. Mentally, you're beyond hope, but we're all a little crazy now and then."

That caused a smile to let them both know he was coming back to rights. Steve then bid his farewell to Harry who murmured his thanks to him for caring enough to stop by. They made a pact that he would attend the weight lifting workout with the guys in the afternoon as normal.

The talk of things on the ranch was the hiking and camping trip that would mark the end of the school year by being the last really fun thing they did before final exams. The dance had been a success, and that influenced many of the hopeful guy-girl pairings of the older children. Harry couldn't seem to avoid student couples, and the afternoon was no different.

He had gone to the workout with Steve and the high school boys, and that had gone without much incident. He did still have to fight some residual pain that felt like someone was chipping away a wall of stone in his head. He had tried regular pain medications, and they did not have any effect on his persistent headaches. Though Harry knew Steve was right about seeking medical help to find the cause of the headaches, he stubbornly refused to do it.

His head was mildly throbbing when Diana and Jada came over to the table where he was sitting with Derrick and Will. The girls squealed some greeting in unison as they talked to the boys, the sound doing nothing to help Harry's headache. Moving over to him without invitation, Diana started making small braids in his thick hair.

"Are you going to be one of the chaperones again?" she asked him. He had been a chaperone at the dance though he wasn't ranch staff, so he could do it again.

"I'm making plans to attend," he said with labored pauses. Though Diana had gentle hands, her hair fixing was only reminding him of the earlier headache and the throbbing that was in his head at the moment.

"You have to come!" she exclaimed with a jerk at the end of one of the braids that made him wince. "You helped me, and it wouldn't be right without you there."

"I wouldn't miss it, dear heart," he said, covering her hand softly to stop her and offering a real smile. He lightly flicked her decorated earlobes in remembrance of shared experience. When Diana smiled back, she glowed brightly in happiness. The moment over, everyone started talking at once about plans for the camping trip.

The whole scene was one of fun and amusement, and that's what Umi saw when she walked passed the table where they were. She thought to herself how cute Harry looked with the little braids in his hair, how Clef-like. It was that thought, though, that made her walk faster away from them. She could think of Clef again when she was in Japan. The most important thing was to finish the school year.

She, too, was going on the camping trip with the kids. There was one thing to have a dance, but it was something else to go foraging away from regular conveniences for a weekend. They would need help in hiking to the camp, setting it up, and then doing several fun activities. As long as the trip wasn't in the Forest of Silence, she would be fine with it all.

Over a week later, Harry stood in the bathroom holding on the sink basin as for dear life. He felt like he was going to throw up again, and he squeezed the porcelain so hard his knuckles where white. His skin felt pale and clammy, and he knew he didn't look at all presentable to be going on a camping trip with the kids.

The rational part of him thought he was insane for even electing to go. They had enough adults, so it's not as though he was required to do it. He didn't want to disappoint the kids he'd grown to care about, though. It wasn't just for the kids, but it was also one last chance to spend time with Umi. She avoided him lately, and what reason did they have to be together? It was almost better this way except his heart still ached for her presence.

"Harry, are you coming?" Jessie shouted at him through the bathroom door.

"I'll be right there," he answered. "I just have to wash my face."

"Well hurry up!" she taunted. "You're worse than a teenaged girl!"

While he did try to wash his face and make himself appear normal in the others' eyes, Jessie walked back to the group shaking her head. Their last real moment together was the chat after their failed date, and she still felt embarrassed about the date itself so many weeks later. She tried to let things go, but he made it difficult just by being still being there.

"Maybe when he gets his memory back, he'll be one big jerk," she said to console herself.

"What was that?" Steve asked with a curious smile.

She put her hands on her hips about to give an answer, but she stopped almost every time she started. "Nothing," she finally said. "Pretty boy's washing his face."

When Harry finally hobbled out to the group, Steve gave a final go-over of the instructions. They were to hike with their camping gear on their back until they got to their campsite. The trip would take about four hours, and they would take short breaks every hour. Once at the camp, they all had to help with setting up tents and the cookery before doing any other fun planned activities.

The group moved out with adults placed in parts along the way around the students. Steve as leader was wandering energetically over all parts of the group to motivate and check things, while Jessie and Joan were monitoring the middle of the student hikers. Harry walked at the rear of the group. His gear was evenly balanced so as not to feel like a strain on him, but he took extra care with his movement in case he needed it.

Umi, on the other hand, was at the forefront of the group and trying not to engage Scott who was up there with her in conversation. It's what people with each other did on hikes, but she wasn't in the mood. Lately she felt embarrassed and uncomfortable around the man because of breaking the engagement. The friendship felt to her to be irreparable, and being around him saddened her even more.

When the students walked, at first they talked excitedly with each other about the trip. It was a chatter that reminded Harry of the buzzing of bees. He started to sweat slightly though the day was not very hot. He passed that from his mind as something of no consequence because it was normal for physical effort to make someone sweat, and no matter how much improvement he had made with his leg, which was quite a lot of improvement, he still wasn't completely healed.

When the group made it to the first check point, the kids didn't want to stop. Steve insisted, though, telling them they would appreciate it later. Then he said to double check all gear to make sure it was still holding right. When the adult chaperones and students were doing as he asked, he checked on everyone, including Harry.

"You look pale," he said upon seeing his friend.

Harry blinked. "I'm always pale. Don't worry about me."

Steve gave him a knowing look, but let the subject drop as is befitting of men. Instead, he told the group it was time to move out again, and he sang some military style chants for them to join in as they went along their way.

In the next hour, Harry continued to sweat. It was coming much more, but again it didn't register with him as they were moving up the mountain and into thinner air. The sound of the group seemed to become dimmer in his ears, too, and he could hear more of the thrumming of blood in his veins. It was so gradual that with the other impairments, he almost didn't notice it.

He looked up to the summit where they would set camp, only two and a half hours of walking away, and he blinked his eyes. He might be getting very light-headed because he imagined a floating mountain over them. Mountains don't float in the sky, his rational mind insisted.

As he walked on, he saw flashes of a pretty face, a little girl with long blonde hair. She was all loveliness wrapped into one being, and he knew he would do anything for her. Harry shook his head at that thought, and looked around again. She was not there, and much too young to be one of the high school students from the ranch. None of the younger children were allowed on this trip.

At their next break, he sat down and cringed. His headache was returning in full force, and he could feel it. He didn't want to turn back, so he decided he'd do what he had been doing for the past weeks and just tough it out again. It made him feel obstinate and secretive not to tell his friends, but it was probably a part of who he always had been even before the amnesia.

Ahead of him, unaware of Harry's plight, Umi was reflecting upon her time in Cephiro. She had a habit of entering worlds and leaving. She'd done it twice in Cephiro, and now in America. She wanted to be somewhere and not feel so transient in it, so she would go home to Japan. Umi hated the guarded feeling that came over her, but she was going home to lick her wounds.

With the camp site still over an hour away, the flood of images in Harry's mind started to change drastically. His head feel like it was literally split, and he felt warmth spread over him with a spike in his temperature that reminded him of uncontrollable hallucinations he once had when he was sick with fever.

In his vision haze he saw a tall man with hair as black as night in long robes, and he was certain this man was important to him, too. The ghost of the blonde girl appeared beside him again, and their faces were shrouded in infinite sadness. Uncomfortable to see him, he looked at his hands, noticing how they shifted in and out of focus. He had both his adult hands that he knew so well and hands with short stubby fingers, the size of a child.

Then Harry saw a vision of Umi, and he knew everything was wrong, so terribly wrong. She was younger then and dressed in armor as if she was going into battle. Friends such as Hikaru and Fuu and foes gathered around her, and she fought with strength and courage. He realized he knew the redhead and blonde from before, and not just because he heard the Water Knight talk of them since he'd known her after his accident.

He knew Umi, and it felt as if he had always known her. When they'd met here, she said he reminded her of a friend she used to know. With unfailing certainty, he was that friend. He staggered in the realization. It was so that when Steve called for the last break, he was so much into his vision of Umi and others he knew that he didn't stop. He stumbled ahead and kept walking, oblivious to the calls from others around him.

The raging headaches and pain were no obstacle as he had to know, and he felt by continuing to press on to see his vision through, he would know the answer. The people in his head began to have names and speak to him. The name pounding on his head over and over was "Clef." It was disconcerting to hear from all these different phantoms, but as strange as it was to him, he realized that was his own name from the time before.

With his true name came all the bad memories behind it. With tears and sweat mingling on his face he struggled blindly. He remembered the deaths of Zagato and Emeraude, how senseless they were. Then he remembered the near-destruction of all of Cephiro when the kingdom crumbled away. He remembered the girls, the Magic Knights, and their sacrifices, and how they all left them. Umi, the impudent and aggravating one he had grown to love above the other two, had left him alone in a restored Cephiro that somehow didn't feel as wonderful without her to enjoy it with him.

With the flood of memories both good and bad overtaking him, Clef fell to his knees and rolled awkwardly to the ground, hampered by the weight of his backpack. Upon seeing him fall, the others ran to him, but before they could get there, he struggled out of his pack's shoulder straps. He then curled up in fetal position and gave a long keening wail like he had been a wounded animal.

"Harry?" Steve asked, approaching his friend with the utmost of caution.

By that time, the man who was once the greatest mage in all of Cephiro was surrounded by the curious eyes of adults and children. Umi pushed the others to get to the front of the circle to see what happened to him.

"No, no," he cried out, putting his hands over his ears and pulling his head to his chest. The wailing sounds of true pain continued, much to everyone's discomfort. No one had a clue what was wrong or how to help him.

Umi moved to him, despite the anguish in his sounds. Touching him with the gentlest fingers, she stroked his hair for a very long time until his cries started to subside. As she reached again to stroke him tenderly, he captured her hand and looked up into her eyes while his own face was a mask of misery.

"You left me," he declared in raw accusation. The look in his blue eyes as he studied her was different than Umi had seen from him while he had been staying at the ranch. He looked absolutely old and weathered.

"Clef," she said with a gasp, and she knew it was true. The mage's memory had returned to him.