Remember for the Both of Us [COMPLETED]

4: Waking Up (Again)

When I finally came to, the sun was shining through the window, directly in my eyes. I groaned and pushed myself up into a sitting position, gasping as my head throbbed. I held my hand in front of my face, eyes tightly squeezed shut, and swung my legs over the edge of the bed, cursing as they tangled with the sheets. 

I let out a breath, examining myself. My bare feet looked pale against the rough floor. I pressed them tightly against the wood, feeling the grain, the texture, under my toes, trying to ground myself to this reality I had found myself in. I had a loose white shirt on, so large it was like a nightgown. It easily came down to my knees.

My hair was loose and I impatiently pushed the long strands out of my face, fingers stilling when I found white bandages around my head. I touched them gingerly, wincing at the pain I remembered from the last time I was awake. 

Just as I was about to stand up, the door opened and Clint peeked in. He froze when he caught my gaze, and so did I. For a second we stared at each other like we had each been caught doing something naughty, but then he broke eye contact and hollered down the stairs. "Oi! Chuck! Get Newt! The Greenie's awake!"

A faint "good that!" wafted up the stairs.

Clint turned to look at me, and I shrank away from him a little. "What's going on?" I asked. "Where am I? Why can't I remember anything--"

He held up his hands. "Whoa, slow down, girlie. You'll get your answers soon enough."

"Soon enough? What is this place? Is it like a prison? Are you keeping me here?" I was acting angry, confused.

"Shush!" he said. "Too much talking will scramble your shucking brains right out of your skull."

"What? Shucking? What does that mean?" Curious, wary. 

"You're just full of questions, aren't you? Hold on a minute, the leader of this place will be coming any minute now. Let me get a look at your bandages. They might need to be changed."

I shrunk away even more. "Who are you? Why should I trust you?"

He rolled his eyes. "My name is Clint, and I'm the one who's been taking care of you for the last five days. Believe me, Jeff couldn't wrap a bandage that neatly--"

"Five days?" I asked. "I've been out for five days?"

"Well, yeah..." he said. "I think so..."

The door opened again and Newt walked in, followed by Jeff. Clint looked at me impatiently. "Now may I change the bandages now?"

I blinked, squinting my eyes slightly so I looked uncomfortable at the idea. "I... I guess..."

As Clint unwrapped the bandages, I held very still. Newt walked forward. "I'm Newt, in charge of this shucking place," he said. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Ow," I said in return, as Clint tried to get some of the hair that I'm sure was practically embedded in my wound out of the way.

"Do you think you could get up and walk?"

I shrugged, then asked with a bit of peevishness, "Are you ever going to answer my questions, or are you just going to let me stew in the emptiness of my missing memories forever?"

He backed up a step, surprise on his face for a split second. "Seriously," I asked, voice breaking. "Where am I? Who are you?  Why can't I remember anything? What is going on?"

Newt sighed, sitting down in front of the bed, crossing his legs, so that I wasn't having to crane my neck upward to see him. "Look, Greenie, what you're feeling, we've all felt." He said the words reverently, like he was reciting them. "Don't feel bad about admitting that you're bloody terrified. If you ain't scared, you ain't human." I felt a pang. I knew he was thinking of Alby.

"We all started out like this. Carted up in the Box, with no idea of what the shuck was going on. I was in the first group up. There were a bunch of us in the Box. None of us knew anything. There was panic at first. A lot of kids died then."

He looked straight through me, those eyes of marble dead and unseeing. "But eventually we got it figured out. We established order. But then--"

Clint backed away from my head, fresh bandages secure around my cranium. Breaking eye contact with Newt, I pursed my lips at the old bandages, red with my blood, trying not to feel sick.

Newt blinked abruptly, stood up. "Actually, it'll be easier if I give you the Tour before I tell you what's going on. Get dressed, Greenie. Clothes are on the chair over there."

As Clint and Jeff filed out the door, I stood staring at his back for a long second, trying to reconcile the cold boy with the one I used to know. Just as he was about to leave, I blurted out, "My name isn't Greenie."

He turned around, head tilted arrogantly. He'd heard this a million times before, and I was no different. "Oh yeah?" he asked. "Then what is it?"

I paused, and let horror flash through my face as I "tried" to remember. I saw the same apprehension reflected in his face for a brief moment. He had never seen someone struggle for their name. That was the only thing that they had to hold on to, and here I was struggling with it.

"Hope," I said suddenly, hating myself, hating Chancellor Paige, hating every word that I had ever said. "My name is Hope."

I tried to interpret the expressions on his face in that moment. There was a faint relief that I had remembered. There was acceptance as he matched my "name" to my face, making it my identity. But then... what was that? That warmth that he looked at me with? The first real emotion I had seen from him. "It suits you," he muttered.

"What?" I asked.

He looked me square in the eyes. "Three years, and finally the Creators give us Hope."

Then he was gone, and I had to scramble into my clothes, heart beating crazily in my chest at the same time as I tried not to cry. He knew me, but by the name I hated the most. And I think that was the worst feeling of all.