Work Text:
i .
your name is emma.
you’re pretty sure it’s emma, anyway. it’s the name that you grasp at in your dreams, barely within reach, and it’s the name that you tell the man that takes you in, voice bright. you don’t remember anything else.
there’s a necklace that you keep close, because it means something. there’s fuzzy faces in your nightmares that you keep close, because they mean something. there’s that meaning thrumming beneath your skin, but you can’t remember any of it.
you’re missing something. a lot of somethings, if the hole in your chest is to be believed.
but you’re relieved.
despite everything, it feels like it went right.
ii .
you don’t know these people. know with a capital k - your heart knows these people, and you hold onto their hands and agree to go with them. because you want to know them again. because you’ve wanted to see them for so long.
it’s the kind of ache you don’t realize until you prod at it, feel out the edges. they’re here now, though, and you’re here now, and that’s wrong in a good way, off-kilter, off-plan. the boy with the white hair and sad smile tells you all of these things in tears, and you don’t Know what he’s talking about but you know, and something clicks into place.
the black-haired boy grabs your hands, and another thing clicks into place. they ask you if you’re willing to come along, and you say yes, and another thing clicks into place, and you don’t have your memories back but you have something back and you’re holding onto it with all you have.
(and, as time and time again has told, you have a lot. )
iii .
ray. norman. don. gilda. so many more.
you dedicate their names, faces, everything that you can to memory. ray sits across from you on the carpet of the house they have and tells you a story, and you can tell he’s trying to stay detached through it but it’s not quite working and he keeps slipping, smiling or frowning, hands shaking. you know that they picked ray to tell you because they thought he would be able to tell it as it was, but something in you tells you something is wrong, so you stop him halfway through his story of running from the shelter in b06-32 - ( and you already know how this will end ) - and grab his hands.
“we don’t have to do this all in one go, ray!”
“you deserve to know,” he says, matter of fact, and he’s right but he’s wrong, in that funny way of his ( we can’t save everyone, and a quiet/loud/said anger ) that you know but not Know. “no secrets. i can handle it, you know.”
you laugh. “i know! but that doesn’t mean you have to, right?”
ray looks at you, eyes wide, before he huffs, a little fond. smiles. “same old,” he mumbles to himself, not quite meant for you to hear. louder, then: “i guess it doesn’t.”
“yep! let’s go help with dinner, then?”
“sure.”
the next time, ray asks norman to sit in the room. he leans against his side when telling you about yuugo and lukas, voice cracking ever so slightly when he mentions the former, and you lean into his side and hope it reassures him just as much as you would’ve before.
iv .
“i didn’t want to tell you, at first.” norman’s eyes are locked on something in the distance, a small smile on his face as he looks out the window. it doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “i thought it would hurt more.”
“i’m glad you did, though! i’m not…” you trail off. how do you put the way you haven’t found anything more than snippets into words? emotions and tangles of faces and fog, and nothing concrete. “i was never going to remember it on my own! i’m glad you guys could for me.”
you mess with the eye charm of the necklace ( dropped into your hand, be subtle about it, okay? ), brushing your fingers across it in a soothing motion. norman’s smile softens, reaches his eyes, finally. you’re pretty sure he’s thinking about it being just like you - you don’t mind that, really. it’s nice to be recognized and cared for as you are, even if it’s different, seven steps to the left and still counting.
“i’m glad i’m still here to do so, emma.”
you beam, and it reflects in his face, a mirror. brightened.
v .
you’re making desserts for the kids playing outside in the yard. it’s quiet in the house, but not silent-quiet ( this house is too quiet, grace field but not ), and you can appreciate the white noise. the slowness of it all. taking your time.
anna had left out a few tins for you to put cookies in, and you begin to pack one up when you clip your hand on the metal and -
you don’t start crying - you’re not much of a crier, never have been, according to the others - but you grin, trembling. wipe at your face. you don’t know why, and that’s okay - you know you have someone to miss. that’s enough, really.
the other kids will like these cookies. you keep packing them up, and then step outside with them stacked in hands, calling out for a pause in the game of hide and seek.
vi .
you have your own room, kind of.
you don’t use it much. most of the time you wake up from nightmares when you sleep alone, clutching at the sheets with wide eyes and sweaty palms, so you’ve found yourself sandwiched between ray and norman, arms tangled and waking-up-early, norman’s medicine alarm going off.
sometimes, it’s all too much, though.
there’s something in the back of your head that tells you that this isn’t supposed to be happening. that you were never supposed to see these people again, no matter how much they’re making you whole, no matter how much it makes you happy, no matter how much you wanted to.
( a promise, something )
so you sit on the edge of the mostly unused bed, and you hold the necklace in your hands. there’s a plate of snacks next to you, left by gilda, and a couple books next to you, left by norman and ray. this is where you’re meant to be, you know, no matter how reckless or unintended you coming along with your family was.
but you don’t have to force yourself. the others can read you better than you can read yourself, and you know if you went out there don and gilda would bundle you up and set you back on the bed, tell you to get some rest too, take a break ( you don’t have to do it all on your own, you two, we’ll come along and- ).
it’s too much. you pick up the books that were left for you, trace the morse code on the inner cover, and begin to read.
vii .
the pictures that you woke up with are… ruined. kind of.
when the others look at them, they can see the other people in there with you, see you as you were. when you see them, there’s nothing - no background, no family, just you a little to the left.
they’re hung up in the living room at the littler ones’ request. you don’t mind not being able to see them, as long as they can.
viii .
“what was my number?”
ray glances over to you from over his book. he looks a little startled, but it smooths out after a moment, matching the way his fingers brush over the number on his neck. “63194,” he tells you, after a moment, and you nod.
“63194,” you repeat. it feels foreign and familiar in your mouth.
“do you wish you had it back?” the question is, once again, matter-of-fact. there’s no judgement behind it, just the same curiosity ray has when it comes to you, the way he tries to figure you out as you are now. you smile.
“i think i miss it, as much as i can miss it.” it’s not a whole answer. he doesn’t press.
viv.
they apologized to you, after ray and norman talked to you for the first time.
for scaring you, confusing you. you were confused and scared - who wouldn’t be - but you’re happy, in hindsight. happy that they cared enough to seek you out for so long, happy that you were able to meet them again, happy that they took you as you are now.
you’re emma, in as many ways as you aren’t emma. you know you won’t ever remember past the wisps of dreams, the things the others tell you that you did, and that’s okay with you.
it was worth it. is worth it.
you gave them the time to create new memories, and gave yourself that, too.
the hole in your chest fills itself, and spills over.