Chapter Text
"Let me get this straight Ali. You have ten dates or less to make the woman you're in love with, remember you and love you back." Kyle Krieger stared at his sister like she had grown a whole different head. He knew that Ali was ballsy, hell maybe even a little crazy but this was on a different level.
Ali shrugged her shoulders, she had hoped Kyle would be more upbeat about her mission. "She doesn't have to remember me, I just need her to fall in love with me again. I can't lose her Kyle, I don't want her to leave me. She's the love of my life, and it kills me that when she looks at me, she doesn't even recognize me."
Ali was struggling, normally when Ashlyn looked at her, there was this layer of love there. When Ashlyn had looked at her in the hospital, it was like all that love had been stripped away and locked up tight.
Kyle listened to her, he could tell that his sister was in a lot of emotional distress. He had flown out to Orlando when he heard about Ashlyn's accident, he had wanted to be by his sister's side. "Well if she can't remember the old memories, then maybe make new ones. You can't rush or hurry love, but I am sure she'll fall back in love with you. You both are endgame." Kyle said trying to pep talk Ali up a little bit. He drew her into a hug and rubbed her back.
Melting into the familiar embrace, Ali sighed. She didn't know how she was going to do it, but they were endgame. She wanted to make sure that no matter what, at the end of the day, her and Ashlyn would be together.
"So what's your plan for the first date?" Kyle had been wondering about that, he wanted to know what big tricks his younger sister had up her designer sleeves.
Ali pulled out a journal from her purse, she had listed hundreds of different date ideas she had come up with and ones that she had seen online. "I am hoping that one of these will be the ticket, I am going to go with the flow." She explained handing over the journal.
Kyle looked over the date ideas and chuckled quietly to himself, his sister was ambitious that much was for certain. "I don't think a woman with head trauma and still in the hospital is quite ready to go swimming with Sharks or skydiving. You might want to start small." Kyle suggested kindly he didn't want to knock his sister down anymore. He knew that she was already feeling discouraged about the whole situation.
"Well I know she likes fashion. Maybe I could take some craft supplies and we could cut out pictures from magazines and glue them on poster boards. Make like some weird pop culture art or something." Ali knew that her girlfriend liked doing random and sporadic things like that.
Kyle nodded his approval. "That would be great." He gently nudged her. "Go get your girl."
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"I won the world cup." Ashlyn's eyes were wide with excitement. Her brother was letting her go through her Instagram. She could see pictures of her and Ali sprinkled throughout, some of her caps with the USA National Team, even when they adopted Logan.
"Yeah you did, and you were on track to be at this year's World Cup before your accident," Chris explained to her that many of her teammates had sent their love for her and messages of encouragement.
Ashlyn still wasn't ready to respond to them yet. She knew some of them of course from her college days like Whitney Engen, Tobin Heath, Heather O'Reilly, and Meghan Klingenberg among the ones she knew. Ashlyn just wasn't ready to pick up where she left off with everybody.
"It's hard you know, to pick up and play this role that's me and yet I don't remember becoming this person. I mean I know it's who I am, but I feel like this is just a character." Ashlyn said tapping the screen of the phone. She felt like everybody knew the play and she was just having to wing it, she felt like a pretender in her own body. "And like I have a bunch of new tattoos, that I don't even remember."
Chris gave her a sympathetic smile, he wished he could take away the pain and confusion. He couldn't even imagine what she was going through. "It's going to be okay Ash, I don't know how or when, but it's going to be okay." He promised, hugging her tightly before smile when he heard a knock at the door.
Ashlyn had thankfully gotten the neck brace off, but her neck still felt stiff so she was slower in her movements. When her eyes finally landed on the door, she felt her heart skip a beat. Ali stood at the door with a bag full of supplies, and a wide smile. She had dressed up in a nice black and white t-shirt, along with some jeans. Ashlyn felt like Ali's smile could probably outshine the sun.
"Wow," Ashlyn mumbled, feeling rather underdressed in just her hospital gown. Ashlyn felt like it made her look pasty as hell and compared to Ali, she knew she looked like shit.
Still, Ali was smiling at her like Ashlyn was the best thing in her life. It was causing Ashlyn's heart to beat rapidly, which was noticeable because she was still hooked up to the monitor.
"You always did say she made your heart beat fast, that's cute. Anyways it's nice to see you, Ali, enjoy your little date." Chris gave his future sister-in-law a hug, and then kissed Ashlyn's head, leaving them alone.
"Hey," Ali said stepping further into the room.
"Hi, Ali." Ashlyn felt shy for some reason but tried to push those feelings down. "So what's in the bag."
Ali smiled and walked closer to show her. "Well first I brought you some of your grandma's famous mac and cheese, I figured you'd be sick of hospital food. It's your favorite cheat meal. Secondly, I thought about our date and decided maybe we could do something artsy. I got poster boards and though we could cut out pictures from magazines and make our own weird art."
Ashlyn's stomach grumbled and she nodded. "I am always down for Mac and Cheese, and that sounds like a great idea actually." Ashlyn liked fashion and being creative. Besides, it would require much effort and it wasn't like she could do anything to physical with a broken left hand and a severe concussion.
"I am glad, do you maybe want to eat before we do the craft?" Ali already knew the answer, of course, she could tell from the way that Ashlyn's eyes were tracking the food container. Ali opened it for her and handed it to her along with a fork.
Ashlyn felt tears pricking her eyes as soon as the food tasted her lips. It brought back memories of being a kid and eating at her grandma's house when things go to be too much at home. "Thank you for bringing this for me. How's my gram doing?"
"She's doing okay, she had surgery on her hip a couple weeks ago but I'm sure she'll be up to see you soon. Maybe when you get out of here, we'll let you go see her if you feel up to it." Ali wanted to take care of her partner the best that she could.
"You and I live together?" Ashlyn assumed they would, but she wanted Ali to let her know.
Ali gave a nod of affirmation. "Yes, we do. We shared an apartment in DC, but then when you came to Orlando you bought a house by yourself. Then a year later I got traded to Orlando and we moved back in together." Ali was proud of their house, being home without Ashlyn felt like a sentence of isolation. Ashlyn was the one who filled the house with laughter and music.
"I must have been doing something right to get somebody as beautiful as you to stick with me for eight years." Ashlyn was still having trouble processing that. Some of her finer motor skills were difficult and her hands shook a little bit.
"We had our disputes, we're both stubborn, we even broke up once. But we managed our distance, we kept the fire going. I am hopelessly in love with you Ashlyn. You were this persistent little keeper who followed me from city to city, country to country, and you stuck by me when I struggled. I struggled hard with my sexuality, but you never forced me to label myself. All you would do was hold my hand and tell me that all you needed was to know that I love you and that I didn't owe you anything else. Our love was all that mattered." Ali trailed off, realizing she was rambling and getting emotional.
Ashlyn was staring at her, her gaze searching as if she was trying to latch on to some lost memory but couldn't. "It sounds like a love story for the ages."
Ali laughed softly. "Babe you have no idea, I love you Ashlyn and I know right now you don't know how you feel about me, but I'm going to be right here okay? I'll just have to carry you and our love like you've carried me." Ali wanted so badly to kiss the girl but she didn't think it would be received well.
Ashlyn was wishing more than anything that she could remember her former relationship with Ali, she hated that everything for the past ten years had been wiped from her memory. She wanted to know what it was like to wake up with the brunette in her arms, what it felt like to kiss her and be in love. At the moment it felt like Ali was a stranger and Ashlyn knew it was hurting the defender.
"Go ahead and eat babe," Ali said, encouraging her. "I'll set up the crafts, maybe we can get you into the wheelchair so you can sit up for a little bit and make your poster at the little desk."
"Sounds good." Ash was trying to collect herself. She struggled to get the mac and cheese onto her fork due to her hand shaking a little bit, but eventually managed.
After Ashlyn was finished inhaling and devouring her macaroni and cheese, she had Ali help her into the wheelchair. “Where did you get all the magazines at?” She asked curiously. It looked like Ali had a wide array of different magazines from Sports Illustrated to Cosmo.
Ali laughed and shrugged. “Well we had some in boxes, you ordered like ten copies of my ESPN body issue magazine.” Ali had also grabbed some from the store as well.
Ashlyn giggled softly. “Oh my gosh.” She grabbed one of the magazines. She flipped through it until she found Ali and giggled softly. “Oh my god, you’re hot.”
Blushing Ali tried to snatch the magazine away from her fiancee. “Give it back babe.”
Shaking her head Ashlyn held it out of Ali’s reach. “You look super stunning, are you sure we’re together because hot damn I’m lucky.”
Ali was bright red, her heart squeezing her painfully in her chest, and yet a million butterflies felt like they had been released. “Yeah, I am sure we’re together. You told me I was the most gorgeous woman on set that day.” Ali pressed a light kiss to Ashlyn’s temple. Even if Ash couldn’t remember, it was nice to see flashes of her flirty personality.
Ashlyn smirked a little bit and cut out the picture of Ali from the magazine. “That one is going on my poster board.”
“Oh my god babe. You would want that on the poster board.” Ali groaned, but truthfully she was a little more flattered than embarrassed.
They spent the next thirty minutes just cutting out random pictures and words, gluing them on the poster boards that Ali had gotten for them. Ali had even brought glittery gel pens and crayons for them to color if Ashlyn wanted.
It was peaceful and it left Ali feeling nothing but grateful. There had been a scary few days where she wasn’t sure if her lover was going to pull through from the wreck. The fear that had gripped her heart during that time, had probably been the lowest she felt.
Ali could still remember the call, she had been sitting at her house with Sydney and Dom. They were going to be throwing a dinner party once Ashlyn got home. Ali had called Ashlyn about twenty minutes before the accident, Ali had told her to drive safely and how much she missed her. An hour later she had gotten a call.
Ashlyn’s jeep had hit the patch of ice and flipped a couple times. It took the rescue workers ten minutes to cut the keeper out of the car. She had been rushed into surgery before Ali even made it to the hospital.
Ali had been worried sick, she didn’t even really sleep or eat the first couple of days. She was too scared to leave Ashlyn’s side. Ashlyn was her entire world and Ali didn’t want to have to go through the pain of losing her. Even though it sucked that Ashlyn couldn’t recall their relationship, Ali just felt lucky that the girl was alive and awake.
“I like yours,” Ashlyn said softly looking at Ali’s poster board.
Going with a more elegant approach, Ali had cut out words that described her relationship with Ashlyn like passionate, funny and romantic. She had included pictures of sunsets, gorgeous outfits, and beaches.
Ashlyn, on the other hand, had cut out pictures of watches, Ali’s photo from the magazine and had doodled some sharks, cats and a rainbow on hers. Ali smiled as she noticed that Ash had even drawn a couple little purple hearts next to the picture of her.
“I like yours too Ash.” Ali reached for the girl’s good hand and kissed the back of it. “The hand-drawn shark was a nice touch. I like how you drew the cat crawling over a rainbow. That's really cute.”
Ashlyn beamed at the praise, giving Ali’s hand a gentle squeeze. She knew her drawings looked like a two-year-old had done it, but it still meant a lot that Ali was trying to make her feel better. “This wasn’t bad for a first date. Visiting hours are almost over, but will you come back again? I’d like you to come back.” Ashlyn said.
As strange as it was, even in the silence she felt comfortable with Ali. It was like all the chaos of her situation faded to background noise and was bearable with Ali close by.
“There is no place I would rather be, than by your side. I’ll go home and come back to visit you. Our next date is going to require you to be discharged from the hospital, but I promise to come back and visit you every day until you’re discharged.” Ali promised, running her thumb over Ashlyn’s knuckles. “You don’t have to say it, just know that I love you, baby. I won’t stop loving you.”
Ali reluctantly let go of her partner’s hand, missing the warmth almost immediately. She began to pack up the craft stuff when she heard Ashlyn clear her throat.
“Would you mind leaving our poster boards. I’ll have my brother hang them up or set them by the window. I’d like to keep them with me… maybe they’ll help me remember.” Ashlyn wanted to keep a piece of Ali close. She wanted desperately to recall what they had lost, but she knew it was going to take some time.
“Of course.” Ali set the posterboards by the window. “I’ll see you tomorrow then Ashlyn. I love you.”
“See you tomorrow Ali… I am glad you came by.” Ashlyn gave a weak wave, watching as Ali walked out of her hospital room. Once her nurse helped her back into the bed, Ashlyn closed her eyes exhausted.
She dreamt of Ali though, and the girl’s megawatt smile.