I was nominated by the lovely mellarksloaves for the Everlark Drabble Challenge with the prompt: “Everlark — Katniss or Peeta wakes up in the hospital with no recollection of their life before that moment” Thank you for the challenge!
I nominate amenityeverlark, jlalafics, everlarkanxiety with the prompt: Everlark - Katniss and Peeta on a very crowded subway. You've got 48 hours :)
*I am not a doctor nor do I have any knowledge of head injuries and memory loss aside from one intro psych class years ago and television. This was written to abide by the 48 hour time limit. Any medical mistakes are all mine although I tried to make it as accurate as I could.*
And, as always, the drabble turned into a oneshot. Sorry for the length.
*********
“...Peeta, you’re in the hospital. You were in a car accident. Are you in any pain?”
The light is so bright. I can’t help but squint. The nurse is nothing but a fuzzy blob of blue for a moment before her scrubs finally begin to take shape. Her hair is long and blonde and when I shake my head in a direction that I’m not sure indicates yes or no she takes her exit. I hope she brings back something to make the pounding in my head go away.
“Peeta,” the man breathes.
He reaches for my hand and I jerk it out of the way but my reflexes are not as strong as I expect them to be. As a result, his fingertips are able to brush my hands. Who is this strange man attempting to touch me?
“You scared us, Peet,” one of the boys says. “Don’t do that again.”
I shake my head. Who are these people?
Finally, the nurse comes back in to save me. She puts something in my IV and it makes me sleepy. Maybe the weird people will be gone when I wake up.
...
The light is so bright that I can’t help but squint. Outside my window the sky is pitch black and on my table is a Styrofoam cup that I hope is full of water. I reach for it but someone grabs it first. It’s the man from earlier.
“Careful,” he says. “Let me help.”
There is a nice calming presence to him so I allow it. He brings the cup to my lips and until the water sloshes down my throat I didn’t realize how thirsty I was. I drink the whole cup and the man says he’ll track someone down to pour me more.
While he’s gone, I fall back asleep.
...
“Why isn’t he talking?”
“It could be many different reasons. The tubes that were in his throat could have irritated it or he just may be exhausted. Or he may not want to talk. Time will tell.”
“Thank you, doctor.”
A door shuts.
“I’m surprised he hasn’t asked for Katniss yet.”
“I figured that would be the first word out of his mouth.”
“Like the doctor said, give it time. He’ll be chatting the place up in no time.” I open my eyes. It’s the same three blond men that are always here. “And look who just woke up. Good morning. Do you need anything?”
Water would be nice. A couple ice chips. That sounds wonderful for my sore throat.
Instead, the words that come out are muffled and soft. They sound like I’m dragging them through gravel.
“Who...are....you?”
...
The man with the ashy blond hair is my father. The boys who could be his sons are my brothers. I guess I do not have a mother – they don’t say anything about her.
...
Nothing they say rings a bell. My name is Peeta Mellark. I just turned eighteen in March. It is May. I am graduating from high school in a week. I was in a car accident and it must have been bad if I am at the hospital. They won’t tell me. The doctor says that I have memory loss and I may recover from it or it may be permanent or a mixture of both.
My father and brothers throw memories at me as if that will get me to remember. I don’t.
There are certain memories that they seem upset when I don’t show any recognition. Like apparently there was a time when I was really little and couldn’t pronounce my R’s and so I legitimately thought my name was Peeta not Peter and when kindergarten came around that’s what I wrote on my papers. Sometimes they’ll just utter one word phrases or names and see if anything comes. Finnick. Gale. Katniss. They say that one a lot – Katniss. But none of it rings a bell.
“Why do you keep asking me about a Katniss?” I ask after they mention it about five times in an hour.
My brothers look back and forth at each other but don’t speak. Under his breath, my father mutters, “you don’t remember,” and even though I’m sure I wasn’t supposed to hear I do and it makes me angry.
“Of course I don’t remember!” I shout. Some machine that I’m connected to starts screaming. “I can’t remember anything! How do I know you are who you are? What if you’re all lying to me? How am I supposed to know?”
The door opens and a nurse rushes in. “Peeta, you need to calm down.”
“How am I supposed to calm down? I can’t do this! I can’t remember anything and nothing is going to help that ever!”
The doctor comes in and gives me something. I fall asleep.
...
After that, my father is the only one in the room. My brothers only come to visit and none of them tell me things unless I specifically ask. It’s the next day, when I’ve been in the hospital for a few days, that I start to get more curious about this Katniss and why my family thought whatever it is might trigger memories for me.
I haven’t asked a question since I blew up so I think it kind of surprises him.
“What is a Katniss?” I ask.
My father sets his newspaper down. “What?”
“Katniss,” I repeat. “Why did you keep mentioning Katniss?”
He takes a deep breath. “Katniss was very important to you. We thought you’d remember her.”
Her. Katniss is a her. I try to remember but nothing comes.
“Where is she?” I ask. “If she’s important shouldn’t she be here?”
My father doesn’t answer. Instead he asks me a question. “Do you want me to tell you about her?”
It takes me a minute, but I nod my head.
...
“Peeta, I am not going to homecoming.”
“Oh, come on!” he says. He wraps his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll be the only one without a date if I don’t bring someone.”
She slips out from under his arm. “Bring Glimmer. She’s all over you.”
“I don’t want to bring Glimmer.”
She rolls her eyes and pushes his shoulder. “Okay, but if I go to homecoming with you and you don’t have a date to prom you’re out of luck. I’m your best friend not your personal dating service. Got it?”
...
“So she was my best friend?” I ask.
My father nods. “She was everything to you. You two were connected at the hip since you were toddlers.”
“So where has she been?” He looks down. “If she and I were so close maybe she could help with memories you don’t know.”
The look in his eyes makes my stomach roll.
...
It’s December when she knocks on his door for the first time in the history of their friendship.
“I got in,” she says softly.
He looks up from where he’s sitting on his bed. She’s in his doorway, her arms crossed and her eyes staring at the ground.
“That’s amazing,” he says, but the enthusiasm doesn’t end up in his voice. He leans back and holds his arms out. She curls up against him and rests her head on his chest.
“I don’t want to go,” she tells him. “It’s too far away.”
“You’ve wanted to go there since we were kids,” he says. “It’s your dad’s alma mater. You have to go.”
She looks up at him. “But we’ll be hundreds of miles away from each other. I won’t be able to see your games.”
He smirks. “Well, it’s a good thing we’re both in the ACC. Maybe we’ll play up there and I can sneak you into the guest locker room.” Then he becomes serious again. “We’ll figure it out. We’ll Skype. We’ll call each other. You’re my everything, Katniss. That’s not going to change.”
She looks into his eyes and nods her head. He feels the familiar tug of his stomach that he knows will now just be a dream with the distance they’re about to put themselves through.
“Promise?”
“Always.”
...
I don’t recognize her, but to be honest, even if I remembered her I’m not sure I’d recognize her anyway. Maybe it’s better this way. I’m sure if I was in my right mind I’d be too upset to be logical. She has bandages all over her face and upper arms. I can’t see the rest of her from under the blanket but I assume that’s very much the same. She has a tube down her throat helping her breathe. On the table beside her bed are so many cards, much like my room, and framed pictures. Pictures of her and a cute blonde girl with pigtails, her with the man and woman I just met – re-met – in the hallway, her parents.
I sit down in the chair beside her bed and take her hand. It seems foreign yet familiar at the same time.
“Hey, Katniss,” I say. Then I pause. “I’m not sure what else to say.”
So I don’t say anything. I just sit there holding her hand until the nurse comes in to check her vitals and change her bandages. Then I slip out of her room in the ICU and back down to my own a few floors down.
...
“Kat, I have to ask you for a huge favor.”
She turns to glare at him. “If it’s about prom then you already know my answer.”
He groans and pulls at his blond curls, a habit he’s had for years. It makes her roll her eyes.
“Katniss, please?” he asks. He takes her hand and gets down on a knee in front of her. “You’re taking off for Boston in August. This is the last time for us.”
“Peeta Mellark! I’m going to college, I’m not dying!”
He gives her his best puppy eyes. He’s not sure that it will work but he has to try. “I just want to spend this time with my best friend in the whole entire world."
She glares. “Don’t guilt trip me into this.”
“If you really don’t want to it’s fine.”
“Fine!” she says, pushing his hand away so she can turn around. She grabs her lacrosse stick and yells over her shoulder on the way to her practice. “But you better be paying!”
He laughs and gets up, running to catch up. “You totally wanted to go. You were just being difficult.”
She doesn’t answer him, but he knows her well enough to not need her words to know her thoughts.
...
I go visit Katniss the next day. I’m not sure if it will help, but it did make me feel better. It was kind of like when I first saw my father and there was a comforting presence. Being with Katniss keeps me calm and it makes me feel connected to something.
I take her hand and start talking, just like I did last time. “Hey, Katniss,” I say. “I’m not sure what else to say.”
Last time I didn’t say anything but this time words just flood out of my mouth.
“They won’t tell me much about the accident yet, but I’m sorry you got so hurt. It’s not fair that I’m okay besides my head and you’re stuck in this ICU prison. You should wake up soon though, right?”
She still sleeps.
...
“That was awful,” Katniss laughs. As they walk out of the hotel that prom was thrown in, she loops her arm through his. “Seriously, why did you want to go to that so bad?”
He shrugs. “It’s one of those things that you have to do. Imagine telling my kids one day that I was too lame to go to prom.”
“Or too smart.”
He nudges her shoulder. “Stop it.”
She throws her free arm out, basking in the late spring breeze. “I can’t wait to get away from these people. Go somewhere new.” Then she turns to look at him. “You’re the only one I really care about keeping contact with out of the lot of them.”
He’s different. He likes their town and the majority of the people in it. He’ll be going to school with a lot of them at NC State next year, including Finnick and Gale who are his two best friends besides Katniss. So he just nods. He knows she’s different. He knows she wants to get out and explore and run as far away as she can.
“Will you come visit me?” she asks. “We could probably find a bus or maybe we could both save up and get you a plane ticket.”
“Of course,” he says. Then he adds in a teasing voice, “But I’m not sleeping on your floor. You want me to come, you sleep on the floor.”
She lets out a breath. “We could both sleep in the bed.”
He spins so quickly. Even when they were little Katniss never wanted to share a bed. She’s always been pure and touch has never been her forte.
So he’s surprised when she leans up on her toes and kisses him.
“I had to do that,” she says. “Just once.”
Then she turns around and starts to powerwalk to his truck.
He stands stone still in the parking lot for a split second, trying to come to terms with what just happened. Katniss kissed him. He’s wanted nothing more than that for over a year now but he always thought it was out of reach. Katniss didn’t think of him like that. And now she’s going to Boston and he’s staying in Raleigh and it’s not fair.
But he’s going to go for it anyway.
“Katniss!” he shouts, running up to her. She’s trying to open the door even though it’s locked and he reaches out for her, spinning her around and kissing her again. It’s quick but it does what he wants it to do. It calms her, stuns her, keeps her quiet so he can tell her. “Why does it only have to be once?”
She smiles and looks down bashfully. “I’m leaving at the end of the summer.”
“Well then we have all summer,” he says, taking her hand. “And then forever. We can make it work. If anyone can, it’s us.”
Katniss smiles and he can see in her eyes that she’s skeptical, but that’s just who she is. He’d be surprised if she wasn’t skeptical. That wouldn’t be Katniss.
“Take me home, Mellark,” she says, hitting the door with her palm. “We can talk logistics tomorrow.”
He walks around to the other side and unlocks the door so they can both hop in. “So I guess prom wasn’t too bad, huh?”
She takes his hand that’s on the gearshift. “Don’t get too ahead of yourself. The night isn’t over yet."
...
“Right, Katniss? You’ll wake up soon,” I continue. “You have to. I may not remember much but I can feel and I feel when I’m in this room. So I need you to wake up. I just know that I need it. I need you.”
My father told me that I had slept for a week before waking up. That means Katniss has been out of it for longer, closer to two now. She must be getting close to waking up and maybe then she’ll be able to help me and I can help her. We can do it together.
I lean down and kiss her hand because it seems like the natural thing to do. It’s just a reflex, something I wonder if I’ve done so often in the past that it is ingrained into me now. My stomach swirls and it catches me off guard. Whereas I’ve been wary of my father and my brothers, even knowing that they are my family, but Katniss makes me comfortable. I know to love my father and brothers by titles alone. I think I love Katniss for some other reason entirely.
And, as weird as that may seem, I’m okay with it. I may not know much else, but I know how important Katniss is to me even if I can’t remember why and instead of being scared I embrace it.
I hold tight onto her hand and I swear for a moment I feel her squeeze back.
Okay. If you people want me to keep sending you these 'make me choose' things that I work so hard to make witty and entertaining... YOU ALL HAVE TO FREAKING CHOOSE ONE.
If I'm taking the time to entertain you, the least you can do is return the courtesy. LOL!
Thank you for kind words and internet hugs. I'd like to think we'll be free of bad days for a while now since so much happened yesterday. I've whined enough though. Just know that I really appreciate the support.
