Author's Notes: Jeezus Christ I had this whole story planned out, but the bender I went on this weekend completely erased my memories, which I find quite ironic considering the subject matter….Also, if anyone cares, the official soundtrack to this chapter is Hated Because of Great Qualities by Blonde Redhead. It's a fucking fantastic song and in the very unlikely event someone is reading this I'd highly recommend giving it a listen.
Bernard arrived at the Lacuna building with a box, a box filled with everything that might remind him of Margaret. In the digital age, this box didn't contain much, but what it did contain was so precious to him that it felt like he was giving up a baby to an adoption agency. There was a strip of pictures they got in a photo booth, a couple of odd toys and trinkets and posters and such that they used to decorate their old room back in Oregon, as well as a few sci-fi books that he got on her recommendation. The most vital of all the boxes contents, the thing that was hardest for him to give up, was a journal she had bought him. Not only was it a gift from her, he had filled it with plenty of sappy cheesy love poems, songs they tried to write together, and a few drawings she had done herself.
Knowing he would have to give it up almost made him change his mind, the idea of giving up something so beautiful, so meaningful, so important to him destroyed him inside. The thing is, he was already ruined, and with a little convincing from his friend he realized he needed to give it up. He needed to give everything up, if he ever wanted to be happy again. No matter how much it meant to him, it was equally bitter and devastating to him that she had already given all these things up. In the end, these things that meant so much to him now, wouldn't mean a thing to him when it was all over. They would be forgotten and so would Margaret. All the joy and love they had shared would melt away, but so would the intense pain he felt from losing her. So he brought it all, and handed it over to the doctor.
"Great! If this is everything then we can begin the treatment!" The doctor said with what seemed like forced enthusiasm. The doctor had an uncanny resemblance to Frodo from Lord of the Rings, which made Bernard even more sad, since Margaret loved that movie.
Bernard followed the doctor to go to the back room with much apprehension, realizing this was his last chance to turn back. He felt nervous, the kind of nerves he got as a child going on a roller coaster or a water slide. He felt intense anxiety, and tried examine various features of the hallway they were walking down. He looked down at the floor and tried to find the pattern of the floor tiles, though their simplicity offered little distraction, so he tried focusing on the wall instead, trying to figure out the exact word for their pale blue coloring, trying to recall the names that one finds on crayons or buying paint. As he was trying to distract himself Bernard realized that they had been walking for a lot longer than he expected. It was as if the hallway itself was endless, stuck on a loop. Upon noticing this, the whole world around him flickered for a brief moment. That was when Bernard realized that he was not in fact at the Lacuna building.
"Right in here please, just sit down and I'm going to begin some memory conditioning and association." The hobbit-looking doctor finally arrived at a door, but when Bernard looked into it he found himself staring into the room that he and Margaret shared in Oregon. Bernard reluctantly stepped through, he realized it was not his last chance to turn back, there was no turning back now.
"You wanna know why I think you fucked him!?" Bernard felt a pit in his stomach as he heard this, he knew where he was. He was now a third party to the observer to the fight that ruined everything. Margaret stood in front of him, slightly drunk as tears streamed down her face.
"Because you're a fucking psycho!?" Now that he was observing the fight instead of participating, Bernard was able to see the mix of hatred and heartbreak in her eyes, and it devastated him. Seeing her cry like that, and knowing he had been the one to cause it filled him with guilt and self-loathing. Then he realized what would happen next, and he tried lunging at the drunken, crazed memory of himself.
"It's because you're a fucking whore! You've been fucking lying to me this whole time!" He yelled back, and threw the beer bottle he was holding at the wall. The impact hit the wall, splashing Margaret with beer, and causing the wall to be cracked open, behind it was television static. Margaret was horrified by the outburst.
"Get out….get out now! I'm calling the cops you fucking asshole!" She began sobbing again, and grabbed her phone from her pocket and dialed 911. The other Bernard, the memory, left the house after fruitlessly begging her to change her mind. As he left Margaret's crying became softer and quieter, with only her and the real Bernie in the room.
"Can you really blame me? For wanting to forget you…How could I ever live with the memory that someone I loved so much could treat me like this?" She asked him.
"I…I didn't know…I couldn't see how horrible I treated you when I was….When it still mattered" Trying to explain it only made him feel worse. The whole scene that played out left him feeling terrible.
"I think you need to go too." Her voice was firm and resolute, no weakness no sympathy. Bernard walked out the door.
When he left he was definitely outside their apartment, although he found himself reliving a completely different memory. The ground was covered with freshly fallen snow, blanketing the tow in a comfortable sort of cold that made it all the more pleasant to stay inside. Bernard and Margaret were not outside however, Margaret had never seen snow before and so they went out to play around and have fun like they were children. They made snow angels, tried building a snowman very unsuccessfully, and finally decided upon throwing snowballs. They didn't care about the immaturity, they didn't care if people were watching them, it was too beautiful to care. As the two started throwing snowballs at each other, the fake Bernie ended up hitting the real one quite a few times. The two ran towards each other and Margaret pulled him in for a kiss. They locked lips for a moment, and then Margaret stared deep into his eyes.
"I love you, and I'll always love you." She said,with more sincerity and compassion than Bernard had ever heard in his life.
"I can't take this anymore" The real Bernard said aloud, audibly distraught. He couldn't bear it, seeing the best moment of his life replayed knowing it would all be ruined, knowing it would be forgotten, knowing that it would live and die one last moment in his head before disappearing forever, just like the snow angels they made. He shut his eyes, covered his ears, tried everything he could do to move on to the next memory, to try and make it disappear, and it did, it all faded away.
AU: Sorry, I'm really quite shit when it comes to dialogue. If you hate my story please be sure to troll the comments.