Author's note- this is my first fanfiction, EVER, and it's an "Australia x Reader". it's written in first-person past-tense, and I named the character, but know that it's still an "X Reader". Just imagine yourself in the scenario. I made this because I think's that there's too little about our Aussie, and I hate how "X Reader" fanfictions always put "you" everywhere. so, please, please, please comment! and this is a part of a larger story, this is only chapter one.

I love you all! comment!

hate's okay, too.

Ascent into the Sunshine

My earliest memory is that of complete and utter darkness. Not only the obscurement of the vision, but also the memory of my limbs being enshrouded in some veil, keeping them from being distinguishable from the blankets over me, although I learned about the blankets later. I was about twenty-three at this point in time, however, due to the combined handicaps (blindness being one of them) and amnesia, I had no way to know this. All that I knew at the time was the fact that I was. I breathed, my heart pulsated at relatively close to its normal rate, and I meet all of the criteria of a living creature- however, I was not considered such. No, I was the vegetable. Feed through tubes, bathed bi-weekly, the unidentified burden of the hospital.

According to their records, I had been in a car crash and had "emerged" the only survivor. More accurately, my heart had yet to give way to the stillness of death; instead it contented itself with the stillness of my new life. I was fully conscious, but I was in my own world, for there's not much that a blind, deaf, paralyzed creature can do to prove to the doctors that she's aware of her own existence; indeed, that was all I was aware of.

My days were spent slowly; I still had the memory of language, but not of sound. It's an indescribable situation- I knew words, but not how they were spelled, nor how they were pronounced, but I thought in them. It was never anything profound, no soul-searching or anything, just simple statements, such as "I wonder if I will find that strange material under me again", this strange material being water.

Being bathed was my favourite thing. It was this amazing, new sensation- it was thicker than air, but lighter that those things covering me (sheets). I still had a slight amount of feeling on my skin, only so that I could feel when I was being handled and I could feel the water.

My world continued on like this for some time- three months, according to the doctor's records- blissfully unaware of anything. Yes, I was curious, but not to an extreme. I didn't know any other world. The same routine followed, until I found myself in a new area. Not much can be said about the transition itself, I seemed to have been sleeping during the transaction, but I soon found that I was very glad for the change.

In my new area, I was bathed every day, and I noticed that it was the same person every time, since the hands grew familiar. They were large and rough, but kind. I also had a larger bed, and the hands would come in and move me. Sometimes to my side, sometimes to my other side- I later learned that this was to avoid bed-sores. I was very happy in this new area, and for another large period of time, I stayed in the same manner that I had.

The change was very gradual, but existent, none-the-less. At first, I started feeling warmer at certain parts of the day. The hands started to be more profound against my skin, and I began to feel the covers. Later, I noticed that if I tried as hard as I could, I could feel a strange sensation on one of my upper limbs. I continued on like this until I was wiggling my fingers.

I had decided to interact with the hands that cared for me; the following morning, when they came to bathe me, I moved my hand into his. All motion stopped- I could feel a thumping in the

chest of my caregiver, the same thumping that I had in mine- increase. I felt a pressure against my hand, a lasting pressure, before I was unclothed and put in the water. I felt another pressure against my hand, but a softer one this time. Not as course, like it wasn't the hand at all.

Next, I began to hear things. Mainly the occasional thump or yell, but I had an extremely hard time with words. The first time they really came out clearly was in a jumbled mess from my caretaker- "...worry...safe...doctors...mate..." they were individual parts in a larger speech, I'm sure, but they gave me endless hours of amusement in trying to recreate the rest of the speech. And so, the hands turned into a voice.

As my hearing improved, I started to hear sentences. I had long decided that my care-taker was a male, due to his deep voice and large hands. Every night before I was put to bed, he would read me a sonnet-

shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate.

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of may,

and summer's lease hath all too short a date.

Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

and often is his gold compexion dimmed,

and every fair from fair sometime declines,

by chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

but thy eternal summer shall not fade

nor lose possession of that fair thou owest;

nor shall Death brag thou wander'st in his shade

when in eternal lines to time thou growest.

So long as man can breathe or eyes can see,

so long lives this and this gives life to thee.

At the time I thought that it was merely a fancy of his.

I stared to distinguish more than one voice in the house. That of my personal angel, and another, quieter one. My angel, as I had decided to call him, was very loud, but the other was quieter and more timid, but he never had anything nice to say. Isn't it ironic, how that always works out? The courser one is kinder, and the softer one is spiteful. Anyways, from what I had managed to gather, the softer one was "Arthur", and didn't get along well with my angel. I would always hear cries of "You git get your arse back here!" or perhaps even "get your mangy kawala away from the kitchen", often replied with, "why? It can't get much dirtier." at that statement, I would always try to smile. I enjoyed listening to their antics for some time, until I heard something that broke my heart. "you git, why would you even keep that vegetable in my house? It's obvious that she's brain dead, I agreed with the other doctors to pull the plug on her! You're just adding her to the burden. I already have to deal with you, now add this thing!" there was silence after that. I can not attest to what happened after that, all I can say is when my angel joined me in my room, he found my cheeks wet. I heard him whisper "I knew you were all there, mate. Don't you worry, we'll be off soon enough."

He was true to his word, for over the next few days, I heard very few words between the two, but when there was a verbal interaction, it was always along the lines of "are you packed yet?" "no, I still have to pack the medical gear." I don't remember hearing anything when we left, but I remember being held for a long period of time. It was as we were leaving that I decided to do something. They were both in my bedroom, and I turned my head towards to say "goodbye, Arthur", a phrase that I had been practicing for some time. I still couldn't quite speak on command, but I understood the basics. After the words were spoken, there was another silence, and a quickening of a heartbeat. Since I was blind, my body compensated by giving me better hearing, so I don't know who's it was. No more words were spoken, but my angel hugged me close, and we went on our way.

Our trip was long, but it passed by quickly, as I was engaged in my first true dialogue. It was mainly a Q&A session, with my caretaker. "How long have you understood us?" the words always took a while to form, but my angel was patient. "L,l,l,loooong?" I heard him laugh, and ask another question; "How much of Arthur did you hear?" although he knew the answer, I replied "I...I'm not... alive?" In hindsight, it was a ridiculous question, but at the moment, I had an extremely vague image of the difference of life and death, and I just assumed that life was walking, and death was immobility. Although I was at the point where I could move my arms and sit up with assistance, I couldn't walk. He quickly said

"anything that bastard Arthur said, I want you to forget. Okay?"

"mmmmmmmk."

"and you are alive."

my face twitched at this- the closets thing I could get to a smile.

I looked up at him and asked "...name?" I had decided that it wasn't "git", like Arthur called him.

"Jack. And yours?"

I couldn't answer, I didn't know. Sensing what my silence meant, he kissed my hair and said "Emaline."

later, when I asked him why he named me such an unusual name, he said that he didn't want anyone else to share my name, because there would only ever be one me.