Chapter Twenty-Eight: Down Memory Lane

Matthew Williams was born and raised in Montreal, Quebec, in Canada. His father left him when he was quite small and divorced his mother. His mother was heart-broken, but she managed to raise Matthew and, seven months later, Fleur Williams, who was about three years younger than Mattie. Disaster struck, though, when Fleur died quite suddenly. Mrs. Williams moved Matthew and herself to Quebec City to get rid of painful memories, and took Matthew out of school. He was homeschooled until he was 18, when he promptly moved to Monde, where he was accepted in the college there. That was where he met the most beautiful girl in the entire city.

Her name was Katyusha Lozinski, and she lived in Matthew's dorm building. By then, Matthew was pretty invisible to everyone except his roommates: Roderich Edelstein his freshman year, and Vash Zwingli his sophomore year. Both times, as fate had it, Mattie was Kat's neighbor. She never really saw him, however, until he signed up to be her housemate his junior year at the University of Monde. Then he, Katyusha, Natalia, and one Toris Lorinaitis lived together for two years, until Matthew graduated with a degree in International Relations.

After college, Katyusha helped him get an apartment in her building, where she lived with Natalia and her brother, who was the owner of the building at that time. They kept their new-found relationship a secret from Ivan because Matthew had heard very gruesome stories about Ivan and his DID. Natalia got him a simple nine to five job at the radio station uptown. It was soon shut down, and Matthew was stuck without a job for a few months.

In that time, Ivan found out about him and Katyusha. He seemed to seethe about it, being a little too overprotective of his adopted sister. In the time, he began dating Natalia, much to her protests. But Natalia soon thought her dating Ivan would be for the best, to protect her friend, Kat. Katyusha was the one to give Matthew the bracelet that he wore with pride that bore his name in gold letters on a chain. To hell if it was a little girly. Toris, Natalia, and Katyusha had ones like it, all baring their names in gold script.

Ivan seethed and scratched at the wound that Matthew was for too long, it seemed, because he turned up at Matthew apartment in a peak of rage:

"Matthew Williams, is it?"

"Merde alors… euh… hello, Ivan…"

"Don't be so cute with me, you little lost stray…" Ivan hissed, advancing on the poor French-Canadian.

Matthew stepped back into his apartment, but he was just backing into a corner, as the big Russian kept advancing on him, until Matthew was stuck against the wall. Then the punches back, hitting him everywhere. Matthew was still as pale and frail as ever, and he couldn't even get a word or a blow edgewise. Matthew wasn't sure where the pain would end, especially when Ivan took out a pocket-knife and gleefully scratched up his face, arms, and legs. Matthew finally couldn't take it anymore, and fell into a deep sleep, probably never to awaken, if he was lucky.

Ivan left as soon as he thought Matthew was dead. Katyusha entered the room a little later with Natalia when she saw the door was open across the way. She screamed when she saw his state, but Natalia was the one who checked his heartbeat and pulse and heard firsthand that he was alive. They took him to the hospital, but Ivan found them in the waiting room and told them they were moving to Fou. He had panicked a little earlier when he saw blood on his hand and had another gap in his memory where he knew he felt fear and anger for… someone.

Katyusha and Natalia were forced to moving up to Fou, and they heard nothing about Matthew for several weeks. Finally, Natalia slipped away from the new house in Fou to check on Matthew. They had evicted him from the apartment, and so she picked up all of his things and either gave them away or burned them. She kept a large white bear, though, that had been Matthew's friend and confidante since his little sister's death. That was a gift for Katyusha.

She found him in the hospital, breathing normally, but in a deep coma. The doctors couldn't keep him in the hospital, so she was forced into taking him. She had nowhere to put him. No one would take a comatose boy, wrapped only in a blanket.

But she had bigger problems. The white-blonde was assaulted by a frantic Ivan, in another one of his fits. He forced her, out in the snow at the end of city limits, to drop the 'little lost stray' and come home. So she left him there, praying to whatever Gods were up in the clouds to take care of him.

So Matthew was left out in the snow for a about a day before, who should come dancing and singing a French-Canadian tune but housemates Arthur Kirkland and Alfred Jones.

Matthew was awoken by voices. At first he was confused and cold and so confused. He thought he was dead. But, as he opened his purple eyes, he noticed he really wasn't. Since he couldn't truly see anything, except a fuzzy form with… blonde hair… He remembered only the love he felt for a certain blonde woman… perhaps this was her? So he kissed the form, hoping… no. It was too much effort. Matthew fell back asleep, blacking out for a while.

When he woke up again, he was being watched by two blondes. He still could not see, and he was worried. Had he woken up blind? He felt like a baby who was just waking up to the world and… were these two his parents? Who was he? Where was he? Why was he full grown and why the hell couldn't he see? So many questions and so little time.

He could hardly even understand what his… parents? Oh well, he couldn't understand what his parents were saying. He tried speaking to them, and they just gave him tea and his glasses. When he put them on, he could see. Oh dear… his parents were both men. They looked at each other and one left for another room in the house.

A little later, Matthew realized that he had somehow lost his memory, that these two men weren't his parents, and that his name was Matthew. There was a bracelet on his arm that said so. Even later, Matthew met a French-speaker (apparently that was the language he had been speaking to his rescuers), and then he was going to live with… Arthur and Alfred.

And he still had no idea what had happened before he had woken up in the house…

Matthew Williams began to cry. Alfred held him for a good hour as he cried and cried and cried. "I remember! I remember! Mon Dieu! I remember!"

Francis held his hand and rubbed his thumb over the top. Arthur hugged both him and the French-Canadian. They did this for a good hour in the waiting room while the doctors were tending to a wounded Kiku. Katyusha and Natalia had gone to pick up Ludwig, thought Katyusha left with a heavy heart, seeing her ex-boyfriend in such a state.

Ow. My heart. That would be it right there in my chest. Breaking.

Please review if you feel bad for Mattie!