Dream Catcher (amnesia) - h.s.

5: Brain damage & the boys come to visit

I wake up in the middle of the night, because Harry's body is shifting below me.

"Where are you going?" I whisper when I see him getting out of the bed.

"To find a bed somewhere. I fell asleep, and then I woke up and realized you might not be comfortable with sleeping in the same bed." He tells me. He's such a sensitive guy.
"I don't want you to leave. I feel safer when you're here. Which is strange, because you're practically a stranger to me." I chuckle, and he laughs as well.

"Okay, in that case, I'll stay with you. I just need to change my shirt, because this one smells." He scrunches up his nose, like he smells something awful, though in my opinion, the scent coming off of his body smells more than fine. I don't mind him standing there shirtless in front of me, though. His back is towards me, and I notice all the new tattoos. There are a lot, I like them. I take some time to admire his muscular back. He's obviously been working out. He turns around while saying: "Oh, I don't have another shirt here," and then he catches me looking.

"You like what you see, huh?" He smirks.
"Oh, I was just looking at your tattoos." I smile innocently.
"Yeah, of course you were." He winks at me. "You like them?" He asks.
"What?" I ask, not knowing what he's talking about.
"The tattoos. Caught you." He says, laughing, and I blush. "I do like them. They're cool."
He comes to lie next to me again, and I trace his tattoos with my fingertips. We both quickly fall asleep again.

We are woken up by the voice of my doctor.
"You know we have beds for visitors, right, Mr Styles?"

Harry is rubbing his eyes and chuckles. "Yeah, I do. I fell asleep here." His morning voice is surprisingly attractive.

"We have the results of your MRI, Anna. You might both want to be awake for this." She says, seriousness in her voice. She sits down on the chair next to the bed.
"Is it bad news?" Harry asks, sitting up and quickly fixing his hair.

"Well, we kind of expected this after the memory wasn't coming back." She answers. "On the scans, we can see that you have a cerebral contusion. That's basically a bruise of the brain tissue. The symptoms depend on the location of the contusion in the brain. For you, this is in the part where long-term memory is processed."

Harry squeezes my hand. "And is there a chance that her memory might come back?"

"We can't rule out anything. We don't know if the tissue has been damaged beyond repair. The good news is that your contusion isn't so bad that you need surgery, because those surgeries are very risky. But the thing with these brain contusions, the type that doesn't require surgery, is that they are supposed to heal themselves. This is because the contusion has caused edema, which is an abnormal accumulation of fluid, in the brain. Your body will make sure that this fluid is drained out of the brain, and this takes time. We will be giving you medication that will stimulate this process. Only after this has happened, we will be able to tell if the brain cells are really damaged, which means you won't get your memory back, or if they temporarily weren't able to function because of the edema."

"And in that last case, I will get my memory back?" I ask her.
"Yes, so you will know when that happens." She tells me, but she doesn't look very hopeful.
"What is the prognosis? I mean, how likely is it that I'll get my memory back?" My hands are getting sweaty in Harry's hands. I'm nervous to hear the answer.

The doctor just shakes her head. "We can't tell. But to be honest, I wouldn't count on it. Your accident was pretty severe, and I personally think it's unlikely that the cells aren't damaged. But you never know. Anything can happen. But if you don't count on it, at least you won't be disappointed."