"I still don't know why I'd have ended up going to Homecoming with you" Veronica exclaimed as she sat in the Echolls family kitchen with the cold cup of black coffee in front of her. "What I lost my memories and suddenly it's bygones?" she asked coldly as she put the picture of the two of them back onto the table.
He had hated her… he'd tried to get her to turn on her father… he had abandoned her… why would she have forgiven him?
"It didn't happen overnight…" Logan said quietly pacing as they waited for her father's assistant to come and pick her up. How could all of this have gone so wrong? Last night had been perfect…
"No… apparently it takes… what 8 weeks?" she quipped sarcastically. She was freaking out… there were holes in her memory… there was truth to what he was saying, the photograph was right there… she just couldn't break through that wall… had her father found out about her investigation into Lilly's death?
"Do you think it was easy what happened to you?" he snapped. "You just weren't you anymore… you were just gone… and then you told me I was the only thing you could remember… and I missed you… we set aside our differences.."
"I'm sorry Logan… for not being here for you… after everything"
He had been a fool to think this could have lasted. She would barely look at him, she sat dressed in a pair of Trina's workout bottoms and one of his hoodies.
"You really don't remember anything?" he asked hopelessly and she shook her head no. He wanted to reach out and touch her, pull her to him, kiss her…
There had to be some trace… some echo of what they had shared still in there somewhere.
"Veronica?" Daisy called as she entered the hallway.
"Here" she answered as she stood up and saw a tall slender Latina girl in dark skinny jeans, a biker jacket and an Iron Maiden t-shirt enter. She didn't recognise her either but she seemed to know her.
"I've called your dad, he's on his way back. Dr Sorrell is waiting for us at Neptune Sacred Heart Hospital, they need to get you in for some tests… so I'm going to drive you, and in a little while Cliff is going to come by" Daisy explained.
Veronica cast a quick glance at Logan who was watching her carefully, she didn't really know this girl, but anywhere was better than being stuck here under his gaze.
"Wallace is going to meet us there… come Oublio, let's get you out of here" she said handing Veronica the small Blue bag that she usually kept in the office of her clothes for emergencies… like the time the 09er girls hid all of her stuff in the Janitors closet mop bucket and she had to get her dad to bring her spares.
"Okay… sounds good, thanks" she said putting the bag over her shoulder and walking out towards the car.
"She's going to be alright" Daisy assured Logan who'd felt like his knees were going to buckle at the agony of her just walking away without so much as a goodbye. "She keeps a journal… I'll make sure she reads it" she promised.
Her father was back by the time the CT test was completed and eventually She was sent to visit the consultant, Dr Jeremiah Holtz, he seemed rather intrigued by her secondary symptoms. She ran her fingers over the small scar tissue behind her left ear, it felt strange.
"As you have been made aware you were first diagnosed with retrograde amnesia as a result of a mild seizure, during which you sustained a head injury. You have been undergoing treatment for that as we have been waiting for the cranial swelling to subside, the swelling itself seemed to have created a total loss of all memories prior to the incident on 17th October 2017. You had been reporting some minor incidents of recall… We have run several tests and what we have got is a single-photon-emission computerized tomography scan, or a SPECT scan, which revealed a profound lack of blood flow to the right temple and frontal lobes of the brain where it is believed that long-term memory is stored. Your recent activity has triggered a separate event called transient global amnesia TGA. It's sudden but temporary memory loss following some strenuous or stressful event" he explained.
"Strenuous… like for example…." She said shyly. Vigorous sex with Logan Echolls?
"Sex-induced memory loss it is thought to be a temporary thing but because it comes on suddenly and causes complete memory loss, it can be worrying for those who experience it… in your case as the lack of blood flow to the right temple and frontal lobes of the brain were causing your memory blockages, this TGA may resulted from the deactivation of the brain's temporal lobes or thalamus which is the part of the brain that serves as a centre for the relay of sensory information. Causing a sort of recalibration… a clean wipe" Dr Holtz told her simply.
"My brain has been recalibrated?" Veronica asked.
"In a manner of speaking yes… we still don't know the long term effects but your blood results show the gonadocorticoids and gonadal steroids in your blood stream seem to have improved neurological functionality. In most cases, the amnesia is anterograde, meaning people have trouble forming new memories. Sometimes, people also experience transient retrograde amnesia, forgetting some portion of their previous memories. You seem to have suffered a bit of both of these phenomena" He elaborated.
"So I've gotten the old ones back… but I can't recall the new ones now?" she summarised. Like the ones where apparently Logan Echolls has fallen in love with me?
"For the moment, it would appear so… but those could return in time also" Dr Holtz explained.
"Is there a risk of another seizure?" she asked.
"Not as long as you continue to take your medication" he told her.
"We will see you both back here next week" Dr Sorrell told Keith and Veronica as they stood outside the office.
"Thank you Doctor" Keith told her. "Are you okay sweetheart?"
"Yeah… I just wanna go home and cuddle up with the only sane member left in the Mars family" she told him.
"Backup drinks out of the toilet…" Keith joked. "I'm just saying…"
"Let's go home dad" she said giving him a big hug and he was grateful she couldn't see the relief on his face… his baby was back again.