Chapter Text
When he woke up, his head hurt.
"Hello, Sleeping Beauty." A warm chuckle filled the air and he sat up, swaying for a moment as his head began to swim. A soft hand appeared on his arm, steadying him. "You might want to take things slow. You hit your head pretty hard - conked out for two days." He finally looked up at the source of the voice, and found brilliant green eyes staring back at him. There was an emotion stirring in them that he couldn't really recognize - relief, maybe?
"Who are you?" He blurted out. "Who am I?" He added as an afterthought. He furrowed his eyebrows, searching for anything in his surprisingly empty head. It was nice, he decided, and awfully quiet. He wondered if that meant that his head had been too full earlier, too busy to really appreciate each though that cross his mind.
"My name's Alexandra Kingston, but you call me Alex. You're Matthew Smith, but I call you Matt." The voice of the woman sitting next to him jerked him from his philosophical pondering. He blinked once at her, acknowledging her answer without offering an opinion either way. For all he knew, she could be lying to him, but that really didn’t seem likely.
"Are you my girlfriend?" He asked, chewing his lip in consideration. He certainly wouldn't mind being her boyfriend. She had, after all, sat in a hospital with him for what he assumed was the entirety of two days. That level of devotion didn't happen often. That was on a purely emotional level. On a physical level, he was sure that anybody would be thrilled to have her, with her golden curls and kind green eyes.
"No, dear." Her laugh seemed forced, and her cheeks were blooming with bright red spots. Was his question really worth blushing over? "We're just friends.” She elaborated. “Your fiancée is going to be here in a week or so. Think of me as an interim companion."
"I have a fiancée?" He repeated dumbly. He struck all of his thoughts about how amazing this woman would be as a partner from his head. If he had promised himself to someone else, she must’ve been a hell of a woman. Or a man. Was he gay?
"Mm hmm." Alex hummed. "Her name is Daisy. You're getting married in October."
Not gay then. He hoped his disappointment didn’t show on his face. Sometimes, women got complicated. Wait – how the hell did he know women were complicated? His own lack of memory was making his already pulsing head throb harder, and he reached one hand up absently to massage his temples. He noticed then that there were wires strung up and down his wrist, and a needle inserted into his arm. He must have been in a sorry state, he thought as he inspected the various bags of IV fluid that were hanging by his bed.
"And what month is it now?" He inquired, wondering how long he would get to re-learn his fiancée before being forced to watch her walk down the aisle. He reprimanded himself at his own cynicism – who was to say that he would be forced into anything, especially getting married?
"Oh, geez, do you remember anything?" Alex furrowed her eyebrows in concern.
"Um...no, not really." He moved his hand to his forehead, rubbing in long strokes across it as he pondered the shadows of memories that kept eluding him. As soon as he grabbed for one, it was gone, replaced by another equally elusive thought.
"It's March. March eleventh." She answered his previous question, and flicked her eyes over to him, seeing if it sparked any recognition. He felt awful, the way she looked as if he should remember the day, but it wasn’t ringing any bells.
"Should I be recognizing this date?" He asked, hoping he would get an honest answer.
"Hmm? Oh, no!" She laughed. Well, his hopes of getting an honest answer were certainly dashed. She was getting much too giggly about something that was supposedly unimportant.
"You looked as if I should remember today." He accused, folding his arms across his chest.
"Nope!" Alex's voice was a half octave higher, and Matt huffed.
"Tell me!" He pressed, trying out a puppy dog pout.
"It's nothing you need to worry about!" She insisted, voice climbing another half octave. He’d have to remember that the puppy dog pout didn’t work on her.
"Alex." He begged. He peered at her with wide eyes (what color were his eyes? He’d have to ask her), hoping that would at least persuade her slightly.
"It's my birthday." She sighed, voice back to its normal pitch. His stomach dropped. He didn’t like to forget birthdays. She had waited by his bed for two days, she had wasted part of her birthday on him, and he hadn’t even remembered that it was her birthday?
"Oh. What is it then, the big three-oh?" Matt teased. Alex gave a strained chuckle in reply, and they were back on the awkward shaky ground that they had been on a few seconds ago.
"Oh, how I wish." She shook head, sending her golden curls flying. "Forty five, darling." She added under his inquisitive gaze, though she seemed reluctant to divulge the information.
"That begs the question - how old am I?" He looked at his hands as if that would help him at all. No wrinkles, that was good, and he felt pretty good, with the exception of the pounding feeling in his head that was only intensifying.
"Thirty one." Alex replied promptly. Thirty one was a good age, he supposed. He had already made most of his stupid mistakes in life, though he also supposed if he didn’t remember any of those mistakes he was going to have to make them all over again.
"And Daisy?" He asked. For some reason his mind was flashing with four words. Speaking of stupid mistakes… Damn, was his subconscious trying to tell him something? He’d have to make a note of it, he decided. Figure out why the few things he could feel were loathing for the supposed love of his life and confusion.
"Twenty five." Alex breathed. He wondered why she was being so secretive about it, but decided against pushing it.
"Six years between her and me, then?" Alex nodded. Six years seemed like an impossibly long amount of time. "And fourteen between me and you?" Fourteen years didn’t seem like that big of a gap, yet six did? The whole thing was making his head spin, even as she nodded again. "What about the rest of my friends?"
"Karen Gillan, you call her Kaz, she's a crazy red headed Scot. She's twenty six." Alex ran a hand through her hair, thinking. "Arthur Darvill, he's a singing, smoking monkey. He's thirty one like you." He had strange friends, then. The thought made him happy. Not only did he have friends, but they were crazy and monkeys. He could get used to that.
"This is making my head hurt." He sighed as the pain once again stabbed through his skull.
"Then go back to bed." Alex suggested softly.
"Alright." He said, lying back down against his pillow. The corners of her lips tugged up in a small smile, showing just her two front teeth. He was caught between wanting to see the rest of his smile – he was bloody taken, why was he thinking those thoughts? – and letting himself go in the cool comfort of his pillow.
"See you later, Matt." Alex said, which effectively made the decision for him. He smiled at her and nodded subtly before dropping off, almost instantly, into sleep.