The Cost of Memories

In Which We Must Learn To Keep Moving Forward

The memories push him out violently, and he comes back with a wicked fit of coughing. Charlie pursues him with calculating eyes, arms crossed across a freshly pressed blouse and her toes nearly tapping out of her high heels.

"It took you nearly a week to process all of her memories. We thought we were going to lose you for a while there when you didn't come out of it as expected," she says, the words drawing attention to the multitude of machines he is hooked up to. "Would have been a shame to have lost both you and Mae in such a short time."

At her name, the memories burst forth again, the ones that he has of her himself and the ones that recognize their original owner's name. The images about split his head open, forcing a deep groan out of his lips as he bends forward on the bed.

After they retreat back into the corner of his mind where he can still feel them hovering, he manages to look up at Charlie. "Is she all right, Charlie? What happened?"

"The memories didn't tell you?" She sighs, sitting down on the edge of the bed. "She's gone, Finn. The only pieces that remain of her are the memories floating inside of your head right now. We don't know how she managed to preserve them for you, but she did."

He sorts through the images, the strangeness of having someone else's opinions and views of the world making him wonder if he'll ever feel normal again. "I think she transferred them to me at the end. Both sets of the memories I have are unclear though, so I couldn't tell you how she did it exactly."

The director of the DMA lets out another sigh and gently pats Finn's hand before standing up in a cloud of lavender and orange that reaches his nose. He watches her with narrowed eyes as she leaves the room, shutting the door behind her. Something deep inside, perhaps from Mae but perhaps not, tells him that he needs to keep the truth to himself, buried as far down as he possibly can.

Leaning back against the pillows, Finn closes his eyes to allow the memories to wash over him again. To him, it seems as if they are getting used to each other; the memories stretching out gentle fingers to caress the inside of his head in comfort. Mae had talked about her feelings that the memories were alive and that she only held onto people's memories for two weeks after extracting them because they paled when not inside a mind.

Reflecting on the last moments he spent with her, it is eerie to find the two sets of memories playing almost simultaneously in his head. It's going to take some getting used to, but for now, he studies himself through Mae's eyes, the only set of memory truly playing in this instance. The memory can tell that she's dying, darkness starting to encroach on the edges as she pulls herself next to his basically unconscious body. A bittersweet moment passes of her running a light finger across his cheek, the scruff on his jaw tickling the pad.

"I want you to understand, Finn," she whispers, "but it's hard to expect that of you when I don't understand it myself. Take care of them for me. Use them to find the other people in my life that deserve to have their memories, both the objects and the actual memories, returned to them."

His vision becomes filled with the sight of himself as she bends down and kisses him, her lips forcing his open. After a time, Mae leans back, and he watches himself glow as his body jerks once before the blackness takes over the whole of her sight.

Perhaps it is a blessing that he doesn't watch her bleed out. That his own memory at the point is of the fuzziness that comes from hitting his head as well as the agony of having her remembrances forced into his mind. As much as Finn would hate to admit it, there is a part of him that is too fond of Mae to watch her suffer while his now-unconscious body lies mere feet away, helpless.