long way home // calum au

one

one

A/N: this is in italics because it's still a flashback type thing. this happens when eponine and calum are fourteen. this is also super short, but that's because it's just getting the story started

“Mum, oh my God.  You are so annoying,” Eponine whined, rolling her gray-green eyes at her mother.  “Cal, isn’t she annoying?”

“Please don’t drag me into this,” Calum grumbled from the backseat.  He was tired of Eponine, his best friend, pulling him into her and her mum’s many arguments.  Apparently it was normal for teenage girls to fight with their mums a lot, but this seemed to be out of hand.  Calum could remember when his older sister was a teenager, and it wasn’t quite this bad.

“Well, you are annoying, Mum,” Eponine repeated.  Calum didn’t even know what Eponine was angry about anymore.  It was probably something about her new boyfriend, Josh.  Calum loathed Josh, and he didn’t do a very good job of hiding the fact.

Mrs. Fleur, Eponine’s mum, started rambling again to her daughter.  She was clearly angry – her knuckles were white from clutching the steering wheel so hard and her face was beginning to turn red.  Suddenly, Calum felt a rumble throughout his entire body, and then everything went pitch black.

………………

Beeping.  That was the first thing Calum remembers about waking up.  There were lots of beeping, and then bright lights, and then the faint sound of sobbing coming from next to him.  A familiar hand was clutching his own. Calum recognized it to belong to his mum.

“What?” Calum asked, his brown eyes fluttering open.  He heard a gasp come from his mother, followed by more tears.

“Oh my God, Calum, you’re awake!” she cried, hugging him as best she could from her position in the chair next to his bed.  She didn’t want to hurt him, for there were tubes coming out of his arms.  Mrs. Hood knew he had to be in a lot of pain.

The aforementioned pain hit Calum like a tidal wave.  It rushed through his body, and he let out a strangled cry.  Calum was more thinking about what happened, especially where his beloved Nina was.

“Mum, where’s Nina?” he asked, squeezing his eyes shut tight.  Mrs. Hood couldn’t help but smile a little at how much he cared about his best friend.  She knew that Calum had deeper feelings for the curly-headed girl, but he would never admit it to anyone, not even himself.

“She’s, uh, in surgery,” she replied slowly.  She didn’t want to tell Calum that Eponine was in critical condition or that she had lost her memory, and most likely would not gain it back from the surgery, no matter how hard the doctors tried.

“Surgery?!” Calum exclaimed, his voice cracking and tears forming at the edges of his eyes.  A single tear fell out, falling down the side of his face.  “Is she okay?”

“Eponine’s going to be okay, Calum,” Mrs. Hood said, attempting to get him to stop asking about it.  She didn’t want to tell him.  She couldn’t bear to see the pain in his eyes.  “Do you want to know anything about the accident?”

“What is she in surgery for?” Calum asked, ignoring the question.

“Eponine hit her head very badly on the windshield.  It could be possible that she even lost her memory,” Mrs. Hood told him, quietly and slowly.  She knew she had to do it, and it was better earlier than later.

Calum had begun to cry, even though he didn’t want to.  His chest was aching, not from his injuries, but for his best friend.  The thought of her not knowing who he was killed him.  All of the memories and laughs and adventures were for nothing.  They were all for nothing.

After the surgery, Calum was allowed to be wheeled to Eponine’s room.  Eponine was awake, but very confused.  They weren’t quite sure how much of her life she could remember, or if she could remember any of it at all.

“Nina?” Calum whispered, grabbing at her hand, but she pulled away.  “Nina, can you answer me, please?”

“Who’s Nina?” Eponine asked him, peering at the strange boy.

“You’re Nina.  Come on, Eponine, you have to remember me,” he pleaded with her.  He was crying again, but he couldn’t help it.

“I thought I was Eponine?”  Every single time Calum would explain the gist of her life and their friendship to Eponine, she would forget it ten minutes later.  Calum kept trying though.  He always kept trying.

…………….

After Eponine “recovered”, she had to go see a psychologist to help her with her memory.  She was still going through constant memory loss.  Sometimes she woke up and forgot what her name was or how old she was.

Finally, the psychologist suggested that Eponine’s parents give her a fresh start, so they did.  Six months after the accident, the Fleur family hopped on a plane for America and didn’t look back.

A/N: okay this is probably super bad and confusing. basically, eponine and calum got in a car accident and eponine lost her memory so her family moved to america to start over. the next chapter will be in present time, so they'll both be eighteen. thanks for reading (even though no one does oops) and please vote and comment and tell me if you like it. i'll try to update asap if you guys want me to. thank you!

-em 

twitter: @emftashton