Obliviate

Obliviate - Chapter Two

Albus Dumbledore's office looked the same as ever - mysterious and whimsical. However, in addition to the usual decor - spindly, metallic instruments sharing cluttered shelves with dusty old books - there was a woman's head leaning out of an emerald fire speaking to him. The old headmaster knelt down next to the hearth, listening intently, his clear blue eyes watching her with interest.

"He's awake," she murmured in a low voice. Her eyes darted from side to side, as if she was afraid of being caught.

The reply came back in an equally quiet voice, "Does he remember?"

"No."

"Good."

As the woman's head disappeared from the flames, he smiled to the room, certain that his plan had been successful.

* * *

"James," he said out loud to nobody in particular. "James, James, James. James."

Although no other memories returned to him and he was still trying to piece together his own identity, he had what he thought was the most important part of it all: his name. He loved hearing the sound of it over and over again, even if he was the one saying it to himself. It was familiar to him in an odd sort of way and he still wasn't used to hearing people call him 'James,' but he figured that in time everything would return to normal.

"James!"

A young, thin woman with straight, shoulder height red hair strode up to his bed and held his hand, smiling at him. Today, her sweet, amber eyes appeared worn and somber, but at the same time they also retained their everyday warmth and kindness and he immediately relaxed in her presence. She'd told him she was a volunteer from a church group who delivered flowers to inpatients at the hospital. James told her he thought she was an angel.

"Nora." That was her name. He had learned it only moments after he had woken up for the first time. "You look sad."

"It's nothing...." She averted her gaze and her smile faltered slightly.

He sought her eyes with his own and patted her hand reassuringly. "Come on, you can tell me."

"Er," she mumbled hoarsely. Then she cleared her throat and said, "The doctor says you're well enough to leave by Monday."

James grinned and chuckled to himself. "I only have one more day here! We have to celebrate!" He glanced at her and noticed her silence. "What's wrong?"

She bit her lip, hesitant to break the news to him because it felt to her that if she said it out loud, it would become true. However, his calm, easy grin made her relax and she replied, "I won't be able to see you anymore."

His face fell and his grip on her hand slackened. She hastily fumbled with the clasp on her necklace and pulled the piece of jewelry off in one fluid motion, pressing it into his warm palm.

"Keep this," she whispered. It was a plain silver chain with a cross. "Try to remember me, okay?"

He beamed at her. "Of course I will."

* * *

The doctor was a short, serious-looking man with a bald patch atop his pale, pasty head. A fancy gold watch adorned his wrist and he wore black, thick-rimmed glasses which rested across the flat bridge of his nose. When he spoke, his lips barely moved and his words came out in a thin, insubstantial drone. James thought the man had never smiled in his entire life.

"Sir? Sir?"

James heard his voice but the message didn't register. "I'm sorry, what did you say?"

"We're checking you out in five minutes."

"Oh."

On the last day of his stay at the hospital, James had been handed a manila folder containing some of his personal information. He owned a flat in London. He didn't have any living relatives or a relationship of any kind. No pets. No job. The file didn't say whether or not he had any sort of social life, but he didn't expect it to. It also said that he'd been brought in by an old lady, but they didn't have her name.

James figured it wouldn't do to admit to the hospital staff that he still couldn't remember who he was, so he smiled and nodded at the men and women who visited him and examined him with curious looks and who wrote their observations in squiggly writing on brown clipboards.

Right now he was standing in the lobby of the hospital in front of a reception desk, wishing he could be talking to Nora instead. The receptionist was typing away on a computer, fingers flying across the keys, muttering to herself. Suddenly she glanced up at him.

"You're all good to go, Mister Evans."

"Thanks-"

"And here are your personal belongings," she interrupted, handing him a lumpy bag.

"Er, thanks," he repeated, surprised. Personal belongings? Hopefully something inside would be able to help him remember something. He held the bag close to his chest as he took cautious baby steps towards the automatic sliding doors that would lead him outside.

With a whoosh, the doors slid apart and he stepped into an uncertain, misty world full of unanswered questions and grey, dreary storm clouds. A light drizzle fell from the bleak heavens, half-heartedly soaking poor souls without umbrellas and dripping steadily off of the nameless city's rooftops and awnings, collecting in sad little puddles by the side of the road. Faceless pedestrians walked to and fro without a second glance at James Evans, the man who didn't know who he was. His only link to his past life was an address scrawled on a tiny piece of paper wadded up in his pocket and his only link to his current life was Nora, a girl he didn't think he'd ever see again.

As he strolled down the sidewalk, he wondered if his life was this complicated before.

* * *

Inside the bag there was a wallet and what he figured was his house key.

There were no more clues.

"At least I have some money," he thought to himself. He walked aimlessly down a walkway; small, quaint shops were lined up along the side with their wares stacked neatly inside wide open windows, attracting wandering eyes and reeling in stray customers. James shrugged and stepped inside one that didn't look very busy, grateful for an excuse to get out of the rain.

Inside there were rows of depressing, sterile electric lights embedded in the ceiling and rows of depressing, sterile shelves stocked with tiny cans loaded with sugar and calories. The unmanned register sat on a counter to his left, surrounded by a barricade of brightly wrapped candy bars and cigarettes. Lining the wall to his right were refrigerated bins with foggy glass doors.

He started walking down the aisles, picking out food at random, not caring what he selected so long as it was edible. When he reached the end, he turned to walk up the next aisle but a flash of red caught his attention out of the corner of his eye and he stopped, peering cautiously around the corner at a man with a rust colored mop sitting atop his head.

There was something about the man that tickled his memory, but there was nothing familiar about his face. He was an old man; his face was lined and gaunt, there were dark circles underneath his eyes, and he moved slowly, as if arthritis had taken over his joints. James leaned around further, trying to get a better view of him. Who was he? Why had this man caught his attention?

Suddenly he looked up and saw James standing there, hanging awkwardly around a display case, staring at him.

"Is there something you want?" he asked bluntly in an utterly unfamiliar, gruff, old man voice.

"No sir," James replied and he shook his head before spinning around and hurrying back up the aisle.

"What was I thinking?" he muttered to himself as he quickly paid for his items and slipped back out into the rain.

* * *

His flat was not a memory jogger.

He entered through the front door, expecting to immediately be assaulted by memories and images, but the house felt dead and empty to him. It was neat and tidy and there weren't very many possessions lying out anywhere. As he roamed from room to room, James felt as if it was the first time he'd ever set foot in the building. When he finally reached his bedroom his eyes swept over the bed, the nightstand, and his dresser - and he had a feeling that he'd never lived here before.

Things were too well kept for his liking, and if he knew one thing about himself for sure, it was that he was not a very organized person. The surrounding neatness just felt stifling and uncomfortable and he didn't like it.

Before he could ponder the mystery that was his life any longer, a phone rang from a distant room, and he darted through his house, searching for the handset. Finally, he found the phone in his kitchen and he eagerly picked it up.

"Hello?" he asked breathlessly.

"James?"

"Yes!" he shouted into the phone. He cringed and nervously scratched the back of his neck before he replied in a quieter voice, "Er, yeah."

"It's Nathan. I need you to come into work on Saturday this week."

"Right. Er, where at?"

Over the phone he heard a sigh. "What's the matter with you? Did you hit your head or something? I need you at the warehouse."

"Okay," he responded, still unsure of where he was supposed to go. "What am I going to be doing?"

This time he heard a laugh. "What do you mean 'what am I going to be doing?' What do you think you're going to be doing?"

"Uh...."

"You're moving shit around." At least the voice sounded amused and not angry with him. "Like you do every other day of the flippin' year."

"Okay..." he answered. He frowned, suddenly wondering where the warehouse was. "Hey, wait-"

"Let's see... you'll be working with... Sam." The voice at the other end of the line ignored him. "Alright, Saturday! Six in the morning! Don't be late!"

Click.

* * *

James had eventually discovered some of his old earnings statements which fortunately included an address for his place of employment. When Saturday came around, he found himself pulling into a gravel parking lot to a warehouse about twenty minutes out of the city in a car that was his but felt like someone else's. He reluctantly walked up to a side door of the building and stepped inside.

"James!" someone called.

A young man with untidy hair and a potbelly rushed over to him. He was covered in dust and there was dirt or grease covering his face. James couldn't tell which.

"Good thing you're here, we just got a new shipment in...."

And so James' first day at work began. They carried boxes from trucks to shelves to skids to shelves to trucks again and at the end of it all, James sagged into a stiff chair, covered in sweat and dirt. He looked over at his partner and he asked him, "Sam, why am I here?"

Sam chuckled and wiped his brow with a dirty rag. "Don't we all wonder that question sometimes? You're, what - nineteen? Twenty?"

James closed his eyes and nodded, not sure exactly how old he was. "Yeah."

"I guess you didn't think college was important either," Sam said. Then he shrugged and he added, "The pay's not bad here."

James shifted in his seat and looked at Sam with a thoughtful expression, feeling something tingling in the back of his mind. A memory? "No, I mean... I just thought I'd learned something useful back in school, you know? Like... like what I'd learned would be my future."

His partner grinned and shook his head. "Nah, they don't teach you anything worth remembering in school." Sam sighed and tilted his head back, a wistful look coming across his features. "The only thing I ever cared about back then were my friends. Still do." He shot James a sidelong glance. "You still keep in touch with your old friends too?"

"I-" He closed his mouth, suddenly at a loss for words. Friends... hadn't he had them at one point in time? He could have sworn that he'd had friends so close they were worth dying for.... If he still did have friends, then why hadn't any of them tried to call him over the week at all? Had they all had a falling out of sorts? Where were they now? James stared at the floor and slowly shook his head.

"Aw, it's okay." Sam said reassuringly. "You've still got me to kick around."

* * *

Over the next few days, James began to wonder more and more about his friends, or rather, his conspicuous lack of any of them. One morning he stopped in front of the mirror and asked himself, "I'm really not so bad, am I?"

On his quest to answer his question, he stopped by neighbor's houses, participating in the banality of exchanging pleasantries, looking for any flicker or sign from them that they were friends, not just two blokes who lived next door to each other. However, as time went on, he found nothing and he started to lose hope that they could be a key to his identity.

James even gave up searching his house for clues, frustrated that he could not find a single photo album, yearbook, or anything else that might shed some light onto his darkened past. It was as if up until his stay at the hospital, James Evans had not even existed.

* * *

It was the second Sunday since he had been home. The first Sunday had been taken up by a time consuming, obsessive search of his house for any hints of his past. By now though, he had tired of the impossible hunt and he resigned himself to hoping that one day his memory would come back by itself. So in the meantime he decided to move on with life, and since it was a Sunday, he woke up early, dressed himself in his finest, and set off to go to church.

"I need to feel normal," he said to himself as he got into his car.

He listened to classical music and jazz on the wireless as he drove to a church he remembered spotting on his way home from the hospital. It was a lifeless, modern building with a low roof and plushy, padded pews. James felt out of place among the dozens of young, trendy couples and their crying babies. The pastor droned on about a story of a diver who saw a cross and he regretted his idealistic yearning to feel normal again.

However, as quickly as it started, the service was over, and James stood up along with everyone else as they shuffled along towards the doors like a herd of sheep. In the background, a contemporary church band made up of scruffy-looking teenagers played something that sounded incredibly unlike a church hymn and he stared at an overly elaborate jeweled belt that the woman standing in front of him wore around her waist. He resisted the urge to yawn, feeling it would be highly inappropriate to do so in a church on a Sunday, and he impatiently craned his neck to see over the crowd, anxious to leave the hot, stuffy building.

And then he saw her. Nora O'Connor, his angel.

She was standing outside the main doors, smiling and shaking hands as the congregation exited. James subtly allowed the sheep to push past him until he stood at the back of the line, where he nervously chewed the inside of his cheek and felt his palms become sweaty as he drew nearer to Nora.

At last he reached the doors and was staring at her pretty face and holding a clammy hand out to clasp hers. When their hands met, he gave hers a gentle squeeze and her eyes went wide with recognition as they moved up and locked with his. James grinned at her winningly.

"It's nice to see you again," he said.

A/N - 8/12/06:
Bonus points to anyone who can tell me where I got the character names for James' work peers.