Magic Knight Rayearth Fan Fiction ❯ The Man Who Fell to Earth ❯ Tabula Rasa ( Chapter 2 )

CHAPTER 2:

Tabula Rasa

 

 

A bright light was shining on his face, and he had a heavy weight on his chest that was almost unbearable. Scott blinked wondering what it was when he realized the light was coming from a flashlight held by a police officer, and the weight was from the airbag that had deployed.

 

“This one's awake,” the officer shouted to his partner. Addressing Scott, he asked, “What's your name, son?”

 

“Scott,” he coughed, “Scott Templeton.”

 

“And your companion over there?” the officer asked shining a light on the back of Umi's head.

 

Scott looked and saw that she was bleeding. Her lovely, soft blue hair was beginning to matt with a sticky, dark substance that could only be blood. “Umi!” he gasped.

 

“Oomee,” the officer repeated.

 

“Oh, my god! Is she going to be okay?” the young man asked with his voice full of worry.

 

“Calm down, son,” the older officer said. “Getting upset won't help any of you.”

 

“We just got engaged,” Templeton started to babble. “Today's her birthday. Her favorite color is blue…”

 

While the one man talked aimlessly, the officer's partner called out to him from the ground in front of the car, “This one's out cold. I'm calling dispatch to send an ambulance. I think his leg's broken.”

 

“The girl in here's unconscious, and the boy is conscious, but in a state of shock,” the officer relayed so they could give the information to the early responders.

 

“Did you see him before you hit him?” the officer asked Scott again with a gentle voice.

 

“No,” Scott breathed in bewilderment. “I was talking wedding plans when all of a sudden he was just there. My girlfriend—is she going to be okay?”

 

“The paramedics are on their way,” said the officer.

 

The next unit of time was a blur for Scott as the paramedics came and put man they'd run over into the ambulance. When they'd lifted him up, he got a quick glimpse at him. He had a thick bush of hair that was light, not quite blond and too close to old lady lavender to be very masculine. When the paramedics freed Umi, they put her on a stretcher beside him in the ambulance. Scott was shaken and not quite right himself, but he rode to the hospital sitting upright in the back of the vehicle.

 

Umi's eyes opened briefly when she was in the ambulance. Her face was turned in the direction of the other victim, and she saw the lavender-haired man on the other be beside her. She murmured, “Master Mage…” She reached for his hand, but fell back unconsciousness.

 

Scott looked up at the sound of her voice, but she'd faded in and out too quickly for him to do anything about it. He only saw that now the two victims were holding hands. He shook his head in guilt, and immediately buried his face in his hands as the ambulance carried them back in the direction from whence they had just come.

 

-&-

 

Few, if any, people remember the trauma of their own birth after passing a certain age. The human mind has an infinite capacity to forget that which is violently unpleasant, such as birth. In older people, it manifests itself in strange ways such as the development of multiple-personality disorder in people who are attempting to cope with extreme trauma. Sometimes, however, we are forced to remember.

 

Had he the presence of mind to be thinking, he would have known birth felt like this. In a sense, he was being reborn into this world. He woke up screaming his pain, and was partially nude, almost like a real infant. He was alone in a world he did not understand. Bright lights assailed him where once he had been in darkness. People he didn't know looked at him in a predatory manner that scared and frightened.

 

Happy birthday to you, dear boy. You are a blank slate.

 

It was the Universe's version of a joke, and he didn't find it all that funny.

 

The questions came to him then, hitting him like bullets to their target. Who are you? What's your name? Where do you come from? He simply didn't know the answers.

 

His leg had been broken? Oh, that was why he was in such pain. Thank you for mentioning it. And just where was he trying to walk on that dark road so late at night? Did he have anyone they could call? A wife or the next of kin, perhaps?

 

Yes, Mr. Doe, you should be fine in no time. This will pass soon. Sometimes this happens when people have severe head wounds.

 

Fade, fade away, dear boy. Drift out to the ocean of forgetfulness because you have no anchor holding you here.

 

He closed his eyes and surrendered to Morpheus's pull.

 

-&-

 

“Shouldn't you be resting?” a worried voice challenged.

 

Umi smiled weakly at Joan. “I'm fine! It takes more than this to hurt me.”

 

“You're not fine, Umi. We worried about you,” she said, the sound of worry clear in her voice. “You were unconscious!”

 

“I hit my head, and I'll have a headache for a few days, but…” Umi shrugged and looked away. “I'm not worried about myself anyway. That man we hit broke his leg, and it's all our fault. If only we'd been looking.”

 

Joan looked at Umi's left hand where the solitaire resided. “Scott proposed?”

 

“Yes,” Umi said with a smile as she brought her fingers to her throat. “That's why we were so distracted. Scott was sharing his wedding plans.”

 

“Congratulations, Umi,” she said with a hug. “Is Scott checking out?”

 

She nodded. “He's offering to pay the medical expenses for that man. He doesn't have anything, Joan. He's all alone.”

 

“He has a kind heart,” she said in reference to Scott.

 

A few moments later Richard and Patricia Templeton found Umi and Joan in the hospital waiting room. Walking closely behind was Jessie. Umi was quickly surrounded by each of them offering hugs and words of affection.

 

“Are you ready to go home, Umi?” Richard said in a fatherly protective way.

 

“Yes, but… I don't want to leave him alone,” she said, indicating the man they'd hit. “He doesn't have anyone.”

 

“She's right,” Scott said as he joined the group. “We can come back tomorrow and check on him if it will make you feel better.”

 

“It would,” she said as she stared with misted eyes at Scott. “I feel so responsible.”

 

“Oh, Umi,” her fiancé said as he held her close, “how do you think I feel? I was the one doing the driving!”

 

They embraced each other tightly before being led out of the hospital by their family and friends.

 

-&-

 

Umi could not rest the next day until she returned to see the progress of the man who was simply referred to as John Doe. He'd had no identification on him, and he could not answer questions about himself. The doctors had pronounced a case of amnesia. She was compelled to go see him because she had to know who they'd run over on the dark road.

 

She broke away from Scott and those that had accompanied her so she could visit him alone. When she entered the room, the lights were low, and the one thing that Umi would see was that his left leg was in a plaster cast. It wasn't broken before they'd met, and Umi sighed with guilt. If her thoughts hadn't been so distracted by memories of Cephiro perhaps she would have seen him sooner and thus avoided this accident.

 

The memory of a light shade of purple tugged at her, and she gasped when she saw him. It was Mage Clef! He didn't look like any way she'd ever seen him back in Cephiro, but it was definitely him.

 

The man had rich, thick hair and a face with a smooth complexion. While Clef in Cephiro had looked like a young boy, this person was definitely a man. The nurses had guessed him to be in his early to mid-thirties, but Umi could feel it in herself that it would be what Clef would look like had he allowed his physical body to mature.

 

You know why he never grew up, don't you? taunted the inner voice that riddled her with guilt for all things in Cephiro. She had no regrets for fighting, that was true, but her one, last regret was always about Clef.

 

He never wanted to be burdened by love like Princess Emeraude or Lord Zagato, the voice continued. He didn't want love. He didn't want you, Umi.

 

She shook her head and tried to block the negative thoughts that came to her. Instead she watched him. It was her Clef come back to her. Wasn't that really Umi's greatest inner wish? She had blown out her birthday candles and made a wish after all.

 

She also noted that he was taller than the Clef she knew, but he was just as a normal grown man should be. He wasn't a giant, either. In fact, she guessed he was actually shorter than Scott, but he was still a full grown man.

 

Umi reached to put her fingers in his hair and a sigh escaped from her lips. Oh, Clef, her heart cried. If only it were so easy that this could really be you.

 

She continued to stroke his hair because it was a compulsion she could not stop. Some part of her was thankful he was sleeping and unaware of what she was doing. His eyes are going to be blue when he opens them, she thought to herself as she watched him. Clef has blue eyes, so of course he'll have blue eyes.

 

She forced herself to remove her hand from his hair, but she stayed in the room watching him quietly. When time finally got longer than she dared, Umi turned to leave the room. As she walked quietly out, she didn't see that his eyes had opened to reveal a blue that she hadn't seen in years. Those blue eyes shrewdly watched her walk out and disappear on the other side of the door before they closed again in sleep.

 

-&-

 

Many days passed in which Umi visited, but he never acted as if he was awake. The Templeton family decided to visit him because Richard had an idea.

 

“We work with disabled children. We can help this man, and if he doesn't have anyone, we are his best option,” he told the doctors.

 

“Are you saying you're going to try to rehabilitate him?” one of the physicians asked.

 

“If we can, yes,” Richard insisted. Some of the children at the ranch were in wheel chairs, so it's not as if doing this would be something unusual.

 

“You should probably ask him first,” a nurse advised. “He's awake now.”

 

Richard, Patricia and Scott entered the room with two doctors and a nurse. All were gathered around the foot of the man's bed talking to him at once. It was confusing, and he wanted peace.

 

“Look,” Richard said to cut through the din, “I'm offering to help you. We've already paid your medical bills, but this is a bit more.”

 

“Thank you,” the man said with a blank stare.

 

Scott looked like he was going to have a fit of hysterics. “I'm so sorry! We didn't see you. Honest!”

 

“Poor Umi got a head injury, too,” Patricia said to him softly.

 

The girl in question had entered the room as the family and doctors were talking. She couldn't see him from behind the others' backs, but already the butterflies were dancing in her stomach. She moved to the right of the room, hiding behind one of the doctors. She looked to the man who could have been Clef out of the corner of her eyes, and gasped as she saw that his eyes were indeed blue. He intensely stared at her while the others were talking unaware of it.

 

The spell was broken when Scott noticed her. “Umi!” He pulled her near him and held her left hand in his.

 

“Were you hurt?” the other man asked her in a voice that sounded warm and familiar.

 

“N-n-not as bad as you,” she said as she looked down at her shoes.

 

When Mr. Templeton offered again for him to come to the ranch for physical therapy, the man accepted on one condition. “Maybe there's a job that I can do to help pay my way. I don't know who I am, but I don't think I am one to take without giving.”

 

“There is always something to be done,” Scott said.

 

“And you work there?” he asked with a nod toward Umi.

 

“Of course she does!” Scott said proudly. “She's wonderful, simply the best fiancée a man could ask for.”

 

“Congratulations,” he said tiredly as he leaned back into his pillows.

 

“Thank you,” Umi said quietly, daring to look at him again.

 

The doctors said that he would have to stay in the hospital a few more days, but by the end of the week he should be ready to be transferred into their care. He would still have to come back periodically for psychological evaluations until his memory returned to him.

 

As John Doe was tired, he'd drifted into a fitful sleep while the others talked. The nurse then made everyone leave the room so he could get much needed rest.