(A 911 Buddie Fic) You Were Made From Scars

Chapter 4

Almost nine months ago

He wished that waking up in a hospital bed, panicking as he struggled to breathe with a tube down his throat, had been the most confusing and surprising thing to happen to him. No, that part came later, once the nurses had calmed him down and rushed away to get a doctor, once his vitals had been checked and it had been confirmed that physically, he was doing well. That was when the questions started.

He struggled to keep up with them, struggled to get his mind working enough to answer. By the end of it all, he knew three things for certain.

He had been in a medically induced coma...

... in a hospital..

... whilst he was recovering from a gunshot wound and some form of head trauma.

Confusion was to be expected, apparently. But there was confusion and then there was whatever he was feeling. He couldn't put his finger on it, couldn't describe why everything felt so askew and wrong. Until the nurse with the bright smile pulled open his chart during her rounds.

"We should really get this updated now you're awake," she said, tapping at the page with her pen. "We can't be calling you John Doe forever."

He frowned, brow furrowing.

"So, how about you give me your name and we get your records up to date."

"My name..." he muttered, gaze falling.

"Yes, and while we're at it, I can call your next of kin."

The machines beside him beeped angrily in response and his chest tightened, head spinning. "I don't... I don't know."

"It's okay, take your time," she continued. "You're safe here."

But he shook his head and swallowed hard, meeting her eyes. "I don't know my name."

And neither did they.

As time went by, he discovered he had been found with no ID on him, down on a riverbank, soaking wet and bleeding, barely alive. The doctors told him he was one lucky son of a bitch and the police looked at him with suspicion. They couldn't find any missing person file that matched his description, and there had been an incident which had delayed fingerprinting and DNA results.

He started his sessions with Dr Trent by the end of the first week, and once he was healed enough, they moved him up to the psych floor to continue treatment. Except, he still didn't completely understand how you were supposed to treat memory loss. He said as much during his latest session and Dr Trent raised an eyebrow at him.

"The problem isn't memory loss per se," Dr Trent said, "we've discussed this."

"Right, right," he answered, leaning back in his chair and huffing out. "It's my memory recall that's broken. My er... what did you call it? The retrieval stage."

"All of your scans show your brain is in good working health. There's no damage to suggest a physical cause to your amnesia. The problem is that, for some reason, you are struggling to access the memories that are there."

"Which is where you come in."

Dr Trent offered a small smile. "Have you thought anymore on what we discussed last week?"

He stayed silent, sinking into himself a little.

"You've been here three months now. Eventually, you'll have to return to the world."

Return to a world that had seemingly forgotten him as much as he had forgotten himself. No one had come looking for him. He checked in regularly, asking for updates, but still, nothing. There had been a spate of robberies amongst other things keeping the police busy, and his file had been moved further and further to the bottom of the pile.

"I don't even know where to start."

"A name would be a good place."

He snorted at that, smiling a little. He hated being referred to as John Doe, but other names didn't fit right either, and it felt wrong to claim a name that wasn't his. It felt like he was giving up hope.

"How about JD?" Dr Trent asked.

"JD? As in John Doe? How is that any better?"

"Think of it as a tag, not a name. Something you can use until you decide on one."

That was how he ended up as JD the new guy at the coffee shop, who was surprisingly good at being a barista and mixing drinks. Dr Trent set him up with the help of a program, and over the next few months, he tried to find a place in the world once again.

"What about Arnold?" his coworker Cassie asked, holding up a cup with the name scrawled on it as she shot him a glance.

He pulled a face and shook his head. It was something Cassie started as friendly teasing, but it became a game between them. When she took the coffee order and wrote the name on the cup, she'd ask him if that felt familiar. Not all the time, mostly when it was quiet or whenever she came across a name that piqued her interest.

"Oh, Daniel!" she said, shaking another cup. "I could see you as a Daniel."

He paused at that, the name skirting across his mind and lingering on his tongue as he repeated it. For a moment, Cassie looked hopeful, but he breathed in and shook his head, dismissing that name too.

That was how his days went. He kept up with his memory exercises and meditation that Dr Trent gave him and kept up with the sessions too. He worked, and worked, and worked some more. After all, there was little else for him to do except wander through the streets of LA, hoping that something would look familiar, that one day, he would see something and everything would come sliding into place.

He never did.

Until one night, he turned the corner of the street to find himself staring at an apartment building on fire. He could hear the sirens in the distance, as he pushed through the crowd that had gathered, a buzz spreading through his body that had him wanting to move, wanting to break free and rush into the building, even though his mind told him that to do so would be beyond stupid.

When he spotted what looked like a child through a fourth-floor window, alone and scared, everything that held him back disappeared.

He was moving before he even realised it. Each step he took, each carefully judged movement, it was like breathing, so natural to him that he didn't even need to think about it. And he didn't, even as he climbed the stairwell that fell away from him somewhere around the third floor, his leg catching a broken piece of wood before he managed to pull himself free. He didn't think about the flames or the smoke, or the absolute danger he was putting himself in. He was too busy counting the doors, until he reached what he believed to be the right apartment if he was right about the window placement.

The child was in the bathroom, hiding between the toilet and bathtub. It took a little coaxing to get him out, but once he was, they were moving. They only stopped when he realised the child had fallen far too still in his arms. He reacted on what he could only describe as instinct, trying to get the child breathing again until finally a firefighter came to their rescue, and for the first time in months, he felt like he could relax.

The sight of the firefighter, the sound of his voice, there was something about it that made everything feel right.

He felt safe.

So, when he found himself staring into deep brown eyes as the name 'Buck' left the firefighter's lips, of course he had to follow. Of course, he had to push it, and follow the firefighter.

"Wait... do you know me?"

"You should get a paramedic to check out your leg."

"You called me Buck."

But the firefighter didn't answer and his chest was aching and his head was spinning.

"Please," he all but begged, trying to take another step forward, only to stumble.

He lost time somewhere and the firefighter was at his side, and he didn't even mind that he was struggling to breath, because for the first time since waking up in that hospital all those months ago, he felt like he was right where he was supposed to be.