First, giving kudos to the twt user here for inspiring this angsty idea to write about! I've seen a couple of movies of where this sort of thing happens to the main character and I wanted to write from Caleb's perspective of how it is for him when he wakes up to not knowing who MC is. Another reference to note is the movie "Momento" as my inspiration.
"She"
CalebxMC
Oneshot Angst Fic
Tags: Memory loss, semi-canon, character x mc, suggestive moments mentioned, upsetting or triggering themes such as violent outbursts/confusion, Caleb's POV
Words: 1.9K
My brain feels heavy, my vision is in a haze from last night's sleep. One thing, however, is clear: I have no idea who this woman is in my bed or if this is even my room. It doesn't look the same. I panic and look around for anything I might see that I recognize, but I can't recall.
"Caleb?" The woman speaks to me in a soft voice, reaching out to me with kind eyes as if she's known me for years. I cringe, nearly falling out of the bed in an attempt to get away from her. My flight response is set, the voices in my head telling me to leave and get to safety. Though my heart is...unusually steady.
"Again, who are you?!" I yell at her, and she doesn't seem affected. She simply tells me her name, which brings me more confusion.
I try my best to recall that name, though when I think, my head throbs, causing more harm than need be. Rushing to the bathroom, I look in the mirror, breathing deeply to calm myself until I spy a small sticky note in the upper corner.
"Caleb...yeah, okay." I look around for other clues, trying to see if there's anything else like the sticky note lying around, and there is. There's one on the vanity on the left side of the bathroom.
This vanity is for her. Your girlfriend.
I look over at my bed at the woman who's still sitting in it. Was she...her? The note didn't have a name. I look at my hand; there's no ring, so I'm not married. I feel my chest, and my hand clasps around dog tags and an apple charm.
"What is this?" I ask out loud, still unsure of myself about what was happening. "Who gave me this?"
"Me." The woman stands up, covering herself with the thick blanket as I notice she doesn't have clothes on. I realize I don't either. I put two and two together, assuming that the woman in front of me right now is my girlfriend.
"You, you're my girlfriend...MC." I make the statement out loud to affirm it. My heart quickens; I feel full, blissful, and safe. This must be true. She comes up to me, one hand to cup my cheek with a smile. I smile back, but weakly, still cautious even though I'm sure that I'm right and MC is my lover. When she stands on her toes for a kiss, however, I push her back in an instant. "I'm sorry...I..."
"It's okay, Caleb. It's been a few weeks since we had to do this. I understand."
"A few weeks?" I don't understand what she means by her statement. Was this something normal? For me to wake up and not remember a damn thing? It couldn't be.
She walks away, going over to another part of the room to touch the wall over a black desk covered with other items I don't recognize right away. I come closer, seeing a hat, a uniform, a badge, a few medals, some strange charging stations, and a laptop. A screen populates in the area where she touched, a video of myself dressed in a basic white tank top and black shorts, one of my arms isn't the same color, in fact, made of metal.
|Hey bud, I bet you're watching' this wondering...who the hell is that guy? Well, I'm you, uh, me? You get it. Anyway, if you haven't noticed the sticky notes you put up, or noticed our lovely girlfriend in the room...|
I look over at MC to see her covering her face, either smiling, crying, or a mixture of both. My attention turns back to the screen when I start speaking again, the pause intentional.
|...She's the reason you're keeping yourself sane for the most part. There's...something about you that resets your memory. You can't get rid of it without him. You know who it is; you should remember that at least.|
"The Professor." I say in unison with the recording.
| Yup. That guy. Don't worry about him, though. Focus on grounding yourself. MC gave you a necklace; that's your anchor. Even if you forget and she's not around, touching it frequently will help keep you from losing it. There are more recordings and notes you'll find along the way. And don't forget the biggest thing of all. Never, ever do that again. You know what I mean. Oh, and don't forget to charge your arm! Later, uh, me.|
The recording ends with him smiling and giggling in the background, from who I'm assuming is MC, who's recording me. I look over at her once more to see that she's wiping away tears but still smiling. I feel a pang of guilt as I stroke the necklace, wondering if what was mentioned toward the end of the video had to be related to her. To never do whatever it was that I did.
"So it's true. You're my girlfriend, and my memories, they...reset. How often?"
She explains to me that my memories seem to reset during high stress or strenuous activities. A blush spreads across her face when she mentions the night before was our first time together sexually and that must have done it due to how long we went at it. It was now my turn to feel embarrassed, even more so since I was still naked. After getting properly dressed, MC hands me a notebook filled with various notes and tips that both she and I wrote. My morning routine, my workout schedule, my job, and how MC and I knew each other from childhood. Everything was here, also with dates written next to it. As I continue to read, everything starts piecing together and making sense, my mind at ease. I even remember that this book was first made last year, and the day that we made it official was some time after this, created exactly on today's date, making it nine months of being together.
"Some anniversary, huh?" I try to lighten the mood, and she rolls her eyes and playfully punches my shoulder. I smirk and then look back down at the book, noticing there was a page that was ripped out but paperclipped back inside. The page is also crumpled, the handwriting as if written in anguish. I recognize it as my own and silently read it.
She's in the hospital because of you.
She's in the hospital because of you.
You hurt her.
You hurt her.
You fucking hurt her.
You promised you'd always protect her, even from yourself. Remember today that you fucked up.
My eyes tremble as I read further down, nearly throwing up after I see the words written in someone else's handwriting I can't recognize: She deserves better than you.
I feel her hand gently press against my back, and I shrug away, moving forward as the book shakes in my hands.
"Why is this in here? Who put this page in here...? I don't...I can't remember this at all." As I stammer and start to panic again, MC tries her best to calm me down, asking what I was referring to. I show her the page, and she gasps, taking it from me and ripping it into pieces.
"That wasn't supposed to be there...he must have put it back in the book." She says with anger laced on her tongue.
"Who wrote that last part?"
"Caleb, calm down. You'll reset again. Just please, go back to bed, and I'll call your job."
"No. Don't do anything. Who wrote that...why won't you tell me?"
"Because it doesn't matter; it won't make a difference—"
"Tell me...RIGHT NOW!" I blow up on her, my arm tossing the book so hard across the room it smashes into a picture that falls and breaks. MC doesn't answer me as she runs over to hug me instead. I try to shove her off, but she doesn't budge. Something in me rages, my anger and anxiety mixing as I try again with all my weight, and I push her off to the floor.
"Why won't you tell me? Is it because you aren't my girlfriend at all and just some stranger that walked in my house? If you are, then you need to leave."
There's tears in her eyes, but she stares at me angrily, bracing herself as she gets herself up and tries to come at me. I cry out and rush toward her, the two of us crashing into the wall as I pin her against it with my arm, seeing that part of the skin had scraped away and revealed the metallic surface underneath. She struggles in determination and looks at me.
"Caleb, don't be stupid right now; it's me. Please remember. Pipsqueak? That's me!"
My eyes go wide when the nickname registers in my brain immediately. A pain surges through my head, and I groan in pain and grit my teeth. It plays over and over in my head as flashes of my life show me calling her pipsqueak on multiple occasions, even now as adults.
"Your necklace, Caleb, touch it."
I remember what I told myself in the recording: the necklace was my anchor. I use my free hand to grab it, rubbing my thumb over it until something populates on the wall. Another recording. I watch a different me this time, disheveled, hair a mess, blood on my face, and scrapes on my hands. I'm sitting in the bathroom, trembling and crying as I set the camera down to speak.
|You really did it this time, Caleb. You had one job, and you blew it. If you're watching this, it's because you're about to do it again, aren't you? Hurt her.|
My eyes pan over to MC, who's still pinned against the wall. I give her room to breathe as she slides to the floor, coughing and catching her breath. I look over at the recording and back up, sitting down in the stray chair behind me.
|You freaked out, turned on her, and she ended up in the hospital. This is her blood on you. This is-|
I watch myself break down mid-sentence, and I can't help but feel pathetic and hopeless. I rub my thumb across one of the dog tags again, and recording shuts off. Forcing myself to watch anything further would be redundant now that I was aware of what it is that I did.
"It was him who wrote that on the page, wasn't it?" I say quietly. I met her eyes, the pain that exists in them. Not for herself but for me, confirming what I said and anything else I would ask beyond that. I hurt her. I had another episode and took it out on the one person I cared about more than myself.
"MC...I'm—" She cuts me off by running over to me and jumping into my lap with her arms around my neck. We both cry and embrace each other, and she whispers to me that she loves me, that it's fine, and that I will be fine. I try to wrap my arms around her as well but can only manage one of them, the other feeling heavy and limp against my body.
"You need to charge your arm again." MC says with a frustrated huff, scolding me as she rolls the chair over to the desk toward the charging station. I look at her, my eyes still wet, and a weak smile as I watch her. I can't believe how lucky I am in this moment to have someone like her, a woman who loves me so much she was willing to write notes and deal with my worst moments; that one phrase was correct in some way. I didn't deserve her. But I also can't live without her and refuse to.