Chapter Text
Nick is sitting at the dining table in a kitchen he has no recollection of. There’s a cup of tea and a plate with two biscuits on it sitting in front of him. One of the biscuits has a bite taken out of it, and there’s the sweet aftertaste of some kind of jam in his mouth.
From where he’s sitting, Nick can see a television in the living room, playing a movie. The characters are familiar, clearly some Avengers film, but it’s not one Nick has seen before. Nick hears a click, clack on the floor and looks down to see a labrador walking to him before it rests its head on Nick’s thigh. Nick strokes his hand down the dogs flank.
“Hello, who are you?” Nick asks the dog. The dog does not answer him.
Nick wonders if he has sleepwalked into a random house and helped himself to a strangers’ biscuits. Nick supposes that he should be scared of suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar place, but something about the situation—a dog resting its head in his lap, a nice cuppa, a Marvel movie in the background—makes Nick feel comfortable. It’s an odd feeling, and Nick’s not sure what he should do.
Nick stands from the table and takes stock of the kitchen he’s in. The cabinets are labeled with what are presumably the contents. Spices. Pots and Pans. Plates, Bowls, Cups, and Mugs. The cabinets are painted a beautiful shade of blue, and if Nick weren’t so perturbed at suddenly finding himself in an unfamiliar place he might take a photo of it to show to Charlie for inspiration for their future kitchen once they save up enough to buy a house and move out of their cramped flat.
The home is unfamiliar to Nick, but it’s warm and cosy. It mostly makes him feel relaxed but there is a building anxiety in his chest, and he swallows around it. A cold, wet something bumps against his hand, and he sees the dog has followed him and is nudging his hand with its nose, looking up at him expectantly. He strokes his hand down the dog’s fur again.
It occurs to Nick that while there’s no one currently screaming at him to get out of their house as they dial the police, it might be just a matter of time. Nick sees a door in the living room, hopefully leading out to what will be a somewhat familiar street, and figures it’s time for him to make an exit.
“Sorry, I should go,” Nick says to the dog, patting it affectionately on the head.
Nick approaches the door. The dog follows. Nick has just reached for the doorknob, ready to get out of this strange place, when he sees it.
Neatly taped to the door, there’s a piece of paper with familiar, precise handwriting on it. Nick leans in to read it.
Nick, you have a memory loss disorder. This is your home. Charlie is in the house if you need help.
Nick can feel his heart beating in his chest. He reads the note over again.
Nick, you have a memory loss disorder.
This is your home.
Nick, you have a memory loss disorder.
This is your home.
Nick, you have a memory loss disorder.
Nick, you have a memory loss disorder.
Memory loss disorder.
Nick feels his chest constrict. He can’t get a breath in. He can’t fill his lungs with air the only thing in his body is memory loss disorder, memory loss disorder, memory loss disorder and he can’t breathe and he’s still in this strange house and he has a memory loss disorder and he can’t breathe and—something wet is on his hand.
The suddenness of the sensation brings Nick's awareness to something other than his own racing thoughts. The dog has started licking his hand, occasionally whining and bumping its nose against him. Nick focuses on stroking the dog, practicing a breathing technique he learned for Charlie years ago.
He looks back at the note on the door. Charlie is in the house if you need help.
Nick surveys the house again. He sees photos arranged carefully on the sideboard, some he recognizes and some he doesn’t—Nick and Charlie at Nick’s university graduation, the two of them grinning while taking a selfie on that first trip to Paris, Nick and Charlie kissing in formal wear at some unknown event.
Nick picks up an unfamiliar photo of a group of people sitting lined up on a couch, all them grinning at the camera over mugs while covered in blankets and wearing festive jumpers. He recognizes himself and Charlie, and Tori squished in between Charlie and Michael. There are two other people in the photo, a man sitting next to Nick with curly brown hair and his arm draped over the shoulder of the woman curled up into his side. After a few seconds, Nick’s brain recognizes the man as Oliver, all grown up from the gangly teenage boy that Nick remembers. The woman might be Oliver’s… girlfriend? Wife? Is this a photo of all the Spring children and their partners? Nick sets the frame back down, absentmindedly giving the dog's head a few pats as he does.
Charlie is in the house if you need help.
Nick scans the room he’s in, looking for some clue as to where he might find Charlie. There’s a door nearby, helpfully labeled Coats, shoes, umbrellas, etc. and not many other places Charlie could be other than upstairs.
“Charlie?” Nick calls out.
“I’m up here, love,” Charlie’s voice calls back. “In the office.”
Just the sound of Charlie’s voice is enough to release some tension from Nick’s chest, and he breathes in a full breath for the first time since Nick, you have a memory loss disorder. Nick follows the sound of Charlie’s voice up the stairs, the dog trailing after him.
Upstairs Nick finds a landing with several doors off of it, each one of them labeled clearly in Charlie’s handwriting—bathroom, guest bedroom, bedroom, office. The door to the office is slightly ajar, and Nick can hear the click clack of a keyboard typing inside. Nick pushes the door open and sees Charlie at a desk, working at a computer. Charlie pauses and turns to him, a gentle smile on his lips.
“Hi, darling. You alright?”
Nick would never say this to Charlie but the first thing that he thinks is how old Charlie looks. The thing is, Charlie doesn’t even look that old, he just has a few grey streaks in his curls, glasses on his nose and a few wrinkles around his eyes where smiling has worn them in. He’s not that old—and still looks smoking hot—but he’s not the 24 year old Charlie that Nick knows. Nick wonders if he looks that old too. He wonders how old he is.
“Yeah,” Nick says. “Just got a bit…”
Nick trails off. He’s not sure how to explain to Charlie what he’s feeling at the moment. As it turns out, it’s not necessary since Charlie nods like Nick has provided a fully formed thought.
“Do you want to sit up here with me for a while?”
Charlie gestures to the corner of the office, where there’s an overstuffed chair with a blanket draped over the back of it. Charlie goes back to his work on the computer and Nick gratefully drops into the chair as the dog follows him, once again gently resting its head on his thigh. Nick reaches out to stroke the dog’s velvet ears and notices a light pink collar around her neck. He checks for the dog’s name and, yes, there’s the dog tag.
Daisy Nelson-Spring
“She’s a service dog.”
Charlie’s voice brings Nick’s attention back to him. Charlie has paused his typing again and is watching Nick with a slight crease between his eyebrows. Service dog. Memory loss disorder. These are things Nick has. Words that describe his life now.
“Why...how…” Nick tries to ask Charlie the question that’s been on his mind since Nick, you have a memory loss disorder but he can’t quite get his mouth to form around the words. Once again, Charlie doesn’t need words to understand him. He never really has.
“You have anterograde amnesia. You were in a car accident and were in a coma for 2 months. When you woke up you had damage to your hippocampus and now your brain can’t store new memories.”
Charlie says it like it’s a line from a script. Something that he’s explained to Nick a hundred times. Nick realizes he probably has.
“How long…”
“About 10 years.”
10 years. It’s been 10 years that he can’t remember. He looks again at Charlie, at the unfamiliar laugh lines and the glasses that Charlie has never worn before. He has no problem believing it.
Nick strokes Daisy’s ears. “You must get tired of explaining all this everytime I forget.”
This makes Charlie laugh lightly.
“Not really. Actually you hardly ever ask. You’re usually too distracted to bother, but every so often you get in a curious mood.” Charlie pauses before looking at him seriously. “Even if you did ask me every few hours, I wouldn’t mind explaining everything to you. You can always ask me anything.”
“Every few hours?”
Charlie nods.
“Yeah, that’s how long you go before your memory lapses usually. It can be more or less though.” He grins mischievously. “One time we were at a party for Elle’s exhibit opening and you were really jet-lagged and also really drunk, so your memory lapsed like every 15 minutes. You were so excited every time I told you why we were at a party and you had to run over to tell Elle how excited you were for her everytime. It was adorable. Truly the most golden retriever like I think I’ve ever seen you”
Nick finds himself smiling despite himself. Sitting here, laughing with Charlie and enjoying the steady weight of Daisy’s head in his lap, he finds himself relaxing into the feeling of being with his love. Charlie turns back to his computer, once again engrossed in his work.
Nick entertains himself by looking around the office. On the opposite wall there’s a bookcase with rows of thick books, the type that Charlie enjoys and that Nick could never get through. Next to Nick’s chair there’s an end table with a stack of books on it and a basket of yarn. Yarn?
“Do you knit now?” Nick asks.
“You crochet. You learned how a while ago. You made that blanket that’s on your chair. You can learn how to do new things even if you don’t remember learning them. If you pick up your current project you should just get started naturally.”
“How does that even work? If I can’t remember anything?”
Charlie shrugs, looking away from his work to watch Nick. “Not sure to be honest. The doctors said it’s called procedural memory and apparently it’s different from like…memories.” Charlie made a vague gesture that presumably encompassed the meaning of ‘memories.’
“I guess we can always ask my mum to explain it to us. I’ll text her.”
Nick starts reaching for his phone in his pocket, and just for a moment something in Charlie’s expression is unreadable, some nuance that he’s lost in the past decade of missing memories.
“She’ll be busy at work right now. I’ll remind you to ask her later tonight and then I’ll be able to explain it to you in the future.”
Nick nods, accepting the plan, and picks up the mass of yarn. One bunch of it is already weaved together into a cloth. Nick tentatively picks up the hook that is sticking through the fabric. Like Charlie suggested, Nick instinctively hooks the yarn around the needle and finds his hands falling into a pattern of movement.
Drunk at a party. Memory loss disorder. Golden retriever like. Service dog. Crochet. All words to describe Nick’s life. Nick wonders how they all fit together. Do they slot together neatly, or are they pieces from entirely different puzzles that he and Charlie are desperately trying to shove together into a complete picture. How much of his old life did he still have? He can’t imagine that he would be allowed to teach in a classroom if he couldn’t remember anything. How much of his life was spent sitting here, mindlessly weaving yarn into blankets while Charlie worked?
“Is this what I do all day? Crochet?”
Charlie nodded absentmindedly.
“Only when I’m working. You usually sit up here and spend time with me until I finish for the day. There are books there that you can finish within a few hours if you want. And a journal if you have something you want to write down or if you want to read it over. Sometimes you watch movies downstairs.” Charlie laughed. “I’m guessing you didn’t finish Secret Wars. You always start screaming when you figure out the plot twist and it’s been suspiciously silent.”
Nick thinks about that. Reading the same books that he knows he can finish in the allotted time he has. Watching the same movies with plot twists that he always reacts the same to. Writing in…a journal. What was it that Charlie called how he felt? A curious mood? Nick feels his curiosity swell over him, and he sets down his crocheting, avoiding Daisy the best he can, and looks for the journal on the end table.
He finds it quickly, a blue notebook with a fountain pen attached to it, ready for him to use. He wonders what is inside. Does the journal tell the story of a man who is constantly confused, scared, or angry? Does it tell the story of someone who is happy with his life?
Tentatively, he opens the journal to the first page. In his own familiar, loopy handwriting he reads the only thing written on the first page.
Memory is identity. You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are.
It’s clearly a quote—Nick could never have written something so poetic—but not one Nick recognizes. He wonders where he heard it. Memory is identity. Who is he if he doesn’t have memories from ten years of his life? Does anything he does or experience matter if he won’t remember it?
He feels the tickle of anxiety grow in his chest. It had shrunk down once he found Charlie, but this line of thinking is feeding the flames into an inferno again. He closes the journal and resolves not to think about it. He chooses to pick up his crochet hook and let the weight of Daisy’s head in his lap and the sound of Charlie click clacking on his keyboard sooth him.
Nick focuses on the repetitive, monotonous movement of his hands. Wrap the yarn, hook on the stitch, yarn over, pull through. Again and again. He feels the wooliness of the yarn running over the same, slightly chafed spot on his hands as fabric slowly forms. He hears the occasional clink each time the metal hook bumps against Nick’s ring.
Is this his life? Memory is identity. You are what you have done; what you have done is in your memory; what you remember defines who you are. This is all he will have. If he can’t remember anything, then this version of Nick will die the next time his memory lapses.
Wrap, hook, yarn over, pull through. A clink against his ring.
Is this all Charlie does? Watch him die these tiny, little deaths over and over? Is Charlie left as the only one who remembers all of Nick’s lives? Do the other Nicks, the one who came before him and will come after him, care enough to be scared for Charlie like he is?
Wrap, hook, yarn over, pull through. A clink against his ring.
Will he finish this blanket before he dies? Will Charlie finish work so they can go downstairs before he dies? Will he ever feel the satisfaction of finishing something before he dies or will he ever only be stuck here in limbo, endlessly working on his half-finished blanket?
Wrap, hook, yarn over, pull through. A clink against his ring.
His ring.
For the first time, Nick really notices the simple gold band on his finger.
“Charlie?”
“Yes, love?”
“Are we married?”
Charlie stops typing, fully turning his body to Nick.
“Yes we are, my love. We have been for almost six years now.” Charlie’s voice is so so soft, so full of fondness that it almost pulls Nick back from the pit of anxiety he has been teetering on the edge of since Nick, you have a memory loss disorder.
But.
Married.
Nick has fantasized about marrying Charlie since he was 16 years old. They’ve talked about it together, imagined what their future wedding might look like. Now Nick can’t remember it at all. Nick thinks of the photo he saw downstairs, of him and Charlie in suits kissing at some unknown place. Was that a photo of their wedding? Of their first kiss as husbands? Nick feels a rush of jealousy for the Nick who lived their wedding. Why couldn’t he have been the Nick who lived that memory? He wishes he was the Nick who married Charlie and then died instead of the Nick who worked on a half-finished blanket, was riddled with anxiety, and then died.
Nick worries his lower lip between his teeth. “Am I a good husband?”
Charlie’s eyebrows shoot up and he laughs fondly. “You still put out if that’s what you mean.”
Charlie stands, and crosses over to Nick’s chair, inserting himself onto Nick’s lap, careful to move Daisy’s head out of the way. Nick can’t help but let some of the anxiety in his chest out through a dry sob, reaching out to Charlie and clenching his fists into his sweater like a human stress ball. Charlie gently scratches the back of Nick’s head, and places a soft kiss to his forehead.
“You’re an amazing husband.” Charlie pulls back to look at Nick in the eyes, keeping one hand gently playing with Nick’s hair. “What’s got you so worried?”
“I just…Are you happy being married to me? You’ve been taking care of me for ten years. Don’t you want to live your life? My mum could babysit me instead and you would be free to do whatever you want.”
Charlie smiles, but there’s some sadness in his eyes. “Doing whatever I want includes doing you, sweetheart.”
Nick can’t help but laugh. Charlie strokes the back of one finger down Nick’s cheek before he continues.
“Not sure what else I would be doing if I weren’t with you, Nick. And you're hardly an invalid tying me down. You keep me company here while I work, and you make me dinner every night, you support all our friends so well, volunteer as a rugby coach—”
“Coach? How can I coach rugby if I can’t even remember the players names or what skills they need to work on?”
“They’re toddlers baby, most of your job is telling them not to wipe snot on their shirt. As long as one of the mums brings snacks and you let them pet Daisy at the end of practice they’re ecstatic. And their names are on their kits.”
Nick rests his forehead against Charlie’s shoulder, reaching down to play with Charlie’s free hand, the one with his wedding ring—his wedding ring—on it. Charlie rests his chin on Nick’s head.
“Most importantly,” Charlie says, “I love you. Any care I put into looking after you is not a burden. I think you know that. Did you ever feel like taking care of me when I was ill was a burden?”
Nick shakes his head emphatically. “Char, no, I wanted to take care of you. I still want to take care of you”
“And I want to take care of you, Nick.” Charlie very gently takes hold of Nick’s face moves him to look him directly in the eyes. Nick feels the gravity of Charlie’s gaze and knows that whatever Charlie says next will be so so important.
“Nick, I love you. I’ve probably loved you since the very second I laid eyes on you. It has been the biggest joy of my life to grow up with you, to see you turn from a boy into a man, and it will be the biggest honor of my life to grow old with you. You taught me what love looks like, and I promise to reflect that love back to you every day for the rest of our lives. I promise to always care for you, connect with you, comfort you and celebrate with you. I will be by your side through whatever life may bring and cherish the time we have together. And I promise that anytime you wish to hear our wedding vows, I will repeat them for you, as many times as you need. I, Charles, take you, Nicholas, to be my husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, ‘till death do us part.”
When Charlie finished reciting his vows, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against Nick’s.
“I chose to marry you, my love. I chose to take care of you. I’m still choosing you. I knew when I married you that I would get to take care of you. Please don’t discredit how much I love you by suggesting I don’t enjoy every moment we are together.”
For the first time he can remember, the anxiety completely leaves Nick’s chest. He nods and Charlie leans forward and presses a soft kiss to his lips.
If this is the only kiss I will get before I die, Nick thinks, better make it a good one.
Nick reaches up and sinks his fingers into Charlie’s hair, pulling Charlie in for a proper kiss. After a minute or so, Charlie pulls back from the kiss, giggling as Nick lets out a whine at their parting.
“You’re such a menace,” Charlie says between laughs. “I have so much work to do.”
Charlie looks at Nick fondly for another moment, stroking his thumb over his temple, and Nick realizes that despite his protestations, Charlie won’t leave him, not yet. Not without permission.
Nick takes a breath, a full breath for the first time. “Thank you, Char. I love you, so much. I-I’m really happy that you're my husband.”
Charlie smiles fondly at him, still stroking his face gently with his thumb, as if he doesn’t even notice he’s doing it. “Will you be okay if I go back to work?”
Nick nods. “Go on then.”
Charlie gets up from his lap and, like a choreographed dance, is replaced immediately by Daisy leaning her weight against Nick’s legs.
“I’ll just go back to the breadwinning then, and you can continue sitting there looking pretty.”
Nick chuckles as Charlie settles himself at his desk again, smiling at him gently one last time before turning back to his computer and beginning work again.
With a sudden clarity, Nick understands what’s written in his journal. He might not remember, but he knows himself, what all his previous lives would have thought to write down, the only thing—person—important enough to document in excruciating detail in every one of his lives.
If Charlie is right about when his memory will lapse next, then Nick only has an hour or two to live. Nick thinks that if all he does in that time is sit here, petting Daisy and admiring Charlie as he works, then he will die a happy man.
Nick opens his journal, and begins to write.