[For Kate] Amnesia plot

[masochistic_lion]

When Bella had fled, I had considered pursuing her, but it had only taken a few moments to decide that we probably both needed some space and time to process what had just happened. I didn't move for several minutes once I was alone. It hurt, to have that taste of what I'd lost, to know it was probably fleeting, or possibly already gone again. I thought I'd made a sort of peace with my situation on the island, but it turned out I'd only done a good job of deluding myself. The wounds were torn open now, as fresh as the evening of my arrival, and at first all I could do was curl up on the bed and wait for the pain and the longing to subside until I could at least function.

Finally I managed to rouse myself, take a shower and change out of the clothes I'd been in since the day before. Then I looked around my empty hut, sighed and squared my shoulders. I wasn't sure if Bella would want to see me again, after what had happened, what I'd had to tell her. She needed someone else that could help her through this.

I went to Kate.

Comments

[girlsolo]

Eddy's not the last person Kate expects to see cruising between the huts of New Atlantis on a mission. Really, not even all that close to the last person. Still, he's walking with enough purpose that it gets Kate's attention.

She makes a quick visual check for Lilo - playing with William and Bonny and Daniel's on his porch reading. Jonas is around somewhere and Sarah probably is too. So Kate rolls up off the blanket she's sunning herself on (multitasking, the single not-quite-mom way) and pads barefoot toward Eddy. If something's wrong, she doesn't want the kids to hear it.

"Hey." She studies him, trying to read the tension in his body for the meaning. "Something wrong?"

[masochistic_lion]

I nodded quickly, keeping my emotions under control, focused on the task at hand and allowing myself to think of nothing else so I could keep myself together. "Bella has amnesia," I explained tersely. "She's forgotten everything on the island, and a good portion of her last year back home." I didn't know exactly how far back her memory loss went, but it was clearly between the time when we officially got together and the time when I left her, which didn't leave that big of a window, really. A few months.

[girlsolo]

Crap. That's just great. Kate shakes her head, trying to keep the anger from taking over. Nothing she can do about the island fucking with her people, again. "So, it takes Craig away so she's not depressed over him, but...what? What's going on in her head?" She needs to know, if she's going to help.

[masochistic_lion]

I closed my eyes for a moment. "She thinks it's the summer after our junior year. She doesn't remember..." I had to pause and take a deep breath. "She doesn't remember me leaving her. As far as she's concerned, she and I are blissfully in love." And it was tearing me apart.

"I told her about Craig," I added, managing to almost not growl the name. "I told her that they lived together before he disappeared. And then she ran away, said she couldn't be there." And I couldn't blame her. It was too much to take in, and of course my reticence to allow myself to fall into old routines had to be hurting her and confusing her further, but I didn't know what else to do.

[girlsolo]

Kate kind of stares at him for a minute, hands on her hips and just...not even sure where to go with that. Then it kind of all clicks together and she knows the first place she's got to go is to, "Shit. Edward." Not Eddy, not this time. "That sucks. Everything you've wanted back and it's not real."

The second place is kind of surprising, too. "I owe you an apology. You could've taken advantage of this and you didn't. That's stand up." Kate likes to think she's got the strength now not to do something like that, but she can't say for sure. "Totally on Team Edward--" Somehow she manages not to grin (probably because she's worrying about Bells). "When we get her back."

[masochistic_lion]

I felt a stab of guilt at her apology. I had taken advantage of the situation. Not as much as I could have, I knew, and perhaps not in the way she meant, but I had reveled in being able to touch her without her awkwardly pulling away from even the most innocent of touches, in having her snuggle against me willingly. "Thank you," I murmured, nodding. "That means a lot to me. So you'll help me keep an eye on her? I'm not sure...how close I should get. I can't avoid her, that would hurt her, but..." I shook my head. "It's a fine line," I sighed.

[girlsolo]

"Duh." Kate reaches across the space between him to swat him in the arm. "Of course I will. I mean, explaining why I'm stalking her's gonna be a pain in the ass unless you mentioned me. Or she's in the mood to believe any of this." She frowns and shoves her hair back off her face, holding it at the back of her neck. "Because getting the Bella she thinks she is to believe she's pals with me is gonna be a trick."

[masochistic_lion]

"Unfortunately, I didn't really have time to get into the people she knows here, beyond Craig. She left too abruptly. But she was ridiculously calm about the whole situation." Then again, that was just like Bella, having the opposite reaction of what a normal person would. I grinned a little as I realized that, though it didn't linger long.

[girlsolo]

"Good to know. At least she still trusts you. So if I check up on her and she thinks I'm a creeper, you can fill her in." She shakes her head then and wraps her arms around herself. Usually it's about taking care of Bells for her, but it sinks in just then that it would suck, like really suck, if she were gone. Maybe more if she weren't but just didn't remember.

"This place. It's like it exists just to screw with us sometimes. It's not always bad. But for real. Everyday's a mindfuck."

[masochistic_lion]

"I can and will," I agreed, nodding. As for the rest of it, well, what was there to say? "That about sums it up, yes. Just when you think you're getting your footing, your world is turned upside-down yet again."

[girlsolo]

Except Kate doesn't get to get turned upside down anymore. She doesn't get to break under pressure and be self-destructive. No binge-drinking, no serial one-night stands, no picking fights, not even sleeping til noon. Lilo means Kate has to cope like a grown up even when Will and Jimmy and Bella don't remember her. Even when Savannah's seeing flashes of the boy who raped her and he's going to show up here for real.

Kate doesn't get to lose it completely. She won't. She just won't. Be. Her mom.

So she jerks her chin at him and puts on a smile. "Don't worry about it. She's going to remember again and we'll take care of her til she does."

[masochistic_lion]

I ndoded. Hopefully when she did, she would forgive me for taking advantage of her memory lapse, though I was doing my best not to. "Thank you," I said, sincerely and fervently. "I didn't know who else to go to, and I knew...that I could count on you." I gave her a small smile. The two of us had gotten off to a rocky start, but it seemed that was changing. I didn't expect to be her favorite person anytime soon, but things definitely seemed to be warming up between us.

[girlsolo]

"Don't sweat it, Ed-" she cuts herself off from calling him 'Eddy' and finishes up- "ward. Nothing I wouldn't do for Bella and even if she doesn't always realize it, that means looking out for you too."