ME: Lost

Memory

Kaidan grunted in pain as thousands of nerves tingled hot and sharp. Each inhale scraped across his burning lungs. Pale light crept between his lashes and he forced his heavy eyes to open. Bottles. Clear plastic, and filled with every color of liquid imaginable. Shelves of them lined the walls. Tubes and wires surrounded him, running from his hands, chest, and neck to a large console at the foot of the bed.

A single light glowed in his peripheral vision, the only illumination in a dark room. Kaidan tried to turn his head to identify it, but panic clawed at his throat as he realized his neck was locked in place. Lifting his arms was a painful struggle, but he managed to raise them to his face and grasp the offending structure.

A cold, slick brace ran across his forehead, around his neck, and down the mattress where it attached to the bed. Clawing at the confining straps proved useless, and Kaidan drew a deep breath to calm his racing pulse. He was in a hospital but he didn't remember arriving. A few items he could see in the dim lighting sported the Alliance logo, so he wasn't a prisoner of war.

A red light flashed just within reach and he strained, tucking his chin down just a fraction more. The light belonged to a small console strapped to his bed, the word NURSE stamped across it in English and Turian. The button lay just within reach and he shifted his right hand to press it.

The woman that entered a few minutes later was petite, short dark hair framing her face.

"Major Alenko, welcome back to the Citadel! It's good to see you again," she murmured gently, her french accent soft and melodious, "how do you feel?"
Kaidan opened his mouth slowly, his words low and rough, "I've...felt better."
The doctor smiled gently, "I would imagine."
She stepped to his bedside and loosened the bolts holding his head brace in place, "Do you remember what happened?"

Did he remember? It all seemed so foggy...like a dream. Where had she said he was? The Citadel? That couldn't be right.

"I was home," he began hesitantly, "visiting my parents-" he trailed off as something she said struck him, "it's lieutenant, ma'am."
The doctor paused in her work, "I'm sorry?" she asked in confusion.
"You called me Major Alenko, I'm just a lieutenant...and this is my first time on the Citadel."

A pregnant silence hung in the air.

"Do you remember what year it is?"
"It's...2182"
The woman's eyes softened, her words measured and gentle as she replied.
"You've sustained a major head injury, Alenko. The swelling on your brain was severe enough that we kept you in an induced coma for two weeks." She paused before continuing. "I believe you may be suffering some memory loss, which is not uncommon for the severity of your injury."

Kaidan struggled to force this information through his sluggish brain. Two weeks?
"What happened? How did I get to the Citadel?"
The doctor gently took his rough hand in her petite one. "It's not 2182, Major Alenko, it's 2186."

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Kaidan lay in complete darkness as he tried to process everything he'd learned. Several nurses checked on him during their rounds, each leaving quietly when he seemed to be asleep. He was glad of this. He couldn't handle conversation right now.

Four years of his life wiped clean as if they never existed. Nothing made sense. He couldn't even trust what he did remember. His parent's cabin, the weeks spent there in isolation, none of that was true. Right?

The doctor had explained that the brain often clings to familiar memories, safe memories, when it experiences trauma. That made sense. The cabin outside Vancouver was the only place he'd ever felt truly safe or completely at ease.

The missing years weighed on him, pressing into his rib cage until he couldn't breathe. His Alliance training had made him tough, prepared him for war. They'd beat him down and built him up stronger, ready to face anything; but this loss of himself was beyond anything he knew how to process.

Dr. Michel had been very compassionate as she tried to fill in some of the missing pieces, but many of the words she'd used were foreign. Reapers, Normandy, Shepard. Empty words. After that she'd left him in peace, promising to place an acquisition request for all relevant Alliance records over the last four years.

Rest was slow in coming, but eventually exhaustion won and he sank into a dreamless sleep.