Chapter Text
Everything was a mess of beeps and dull colours, of pain and dizziness as he was drifting in and out of consciousness. Nothing was static but rather whirling around him in blurry shapes, twisting his already confused mind. Where am I? What's going on? Those two questions were as basic as they got but they were the only ones he could still put together. The rest was just a long string of mingled perceptions : blinding lights, annoying beepings, muffled voices, a grey ceiling. And a smell. The distinctive smell of sickness and antiseptic. But distinctive of what, he couldn't tell. Instead, he passed out.
By the time he came to once more, the ceiling had toned down its vigorous spin into a gentler waltz. The details of his surroundings, though still hazy, appeared somewhat sharper. His eyed took a while to get used to the assaulting brightness, but he could definitely make out the shape of an IV bag hanging just above his head, hooked to a pole.
Looking up made his headache worse so he closed his eyes to gather himself, mentally thanking whoever had had the brilliant idea to keep the lights to a minimum. He was certain that any source of direct brightness would have left him blind and screaming.
A strangled cough escaped from his dry throat. Damn, he could have killed for a glass of water. He shuffled his arm against the mattress, only to discover how little motion he could manage. His brow furrowed. What the hell was going on?!
His attention was quickly diverted by something on his left, the sound of ruffling fabric and light footsteps getting closer. Instinctively, his head turned towards the noise, though his eyes remained firmly closed, shying away from the world. Something warm, a hand maybe, settled on his shoulder. The warmth of the touch had something reassuring to it, and if there was something he could do with right now, it was comfort.
"Hey.." whispered a man's voice. It was a little rasp, as though its owner hadn't talked in a while.
A thumb began to stroke his shoulder and, ever so slowly, he managed to open his eyes. Everything was blurry at first. He vaguely recognised the dull shade of the ceiling and what ought to be the oval of someone's face. It took a few seconds for his pupils to adjust and soon, overwhelmingly blue eyes were staring back at him. He took a deep breath, as though the sight of a fellow human being had revived him, but as the air lifted his chest, a sharp pain left him wincing in pain. The stroke on his shoulder tightened as well.
"I know, I know... Don't fill your lungs too much.." The empathy and compassion in his voice somewhat eased the pain, like balm applied directly to his wounds.
He took another, though confused, look at the man. Only now did he notice the yet striking redness in his eyes, tainting the blue of his irises. His gaze ran along his features, his tired but nevertheless relieved smile, his messy black curls... Did he know him? Surely he would have remembered...
"Next time you want to let your inner drama queen run free, humour me and avoid the whole hospital thing, eh?"
He didn't know why, but the corners of his lips twitched in what he hoped to be a smile. His own voice didn't seem to obey him yet, his dry throat cutting every attempt to speak short.
"The doctors told us to warn them if you wake up. I'm going to bring in Ferre and Joly, they can't be far."
No! No, he couldn't go! He had not even told him what had happened! He managed to let out a strangled, panicked noise that stopped the man from storming out of the room.
"Don't worry, I'll be right back!"
And he was gone.
His gaze fixed on the ceiling, he tried to catch small breaths, stopping filling his lungs the moment the sting was getting too unbearable. What the fuck was happening? Who was that guy? For how long had he been here? The only thing that brought a bit of peace to his troubled and puzzled mind was the thought of Combeferre. If there was someone who could spit it out clearly, it was Ferre. Yes. Ferre would know. Ferre would explain.
He took a quick look down to his arms. One seems completely fine, though covered by an ugly hospital blouse. One other didn't tell quite the same story. No wonder he had failed to move it : it was trapped in a blue cast stretching from his wrist up to a little over his elbow. Did he fall? Ferre, he remembered. All of this was going to be explained. Lucky they had had their last Bac exam just a week ago, he thought. Writing with his left hand would have been a bitch.
By the time someone stepped in the room again, he had almost nodded off. Staying conscious was asking way more strength than he had to give. The sound of footsteps startled him and his effort to lift his head from the pillow was welcomed by a painful stiffness. A doctor as standing at the door, white coat and all, seemingly skimming through the chart he was holding in his hand. His chart.
"Welcome back, young man," he smiled, finally looking at him. "How are you feeling?"
'Like shit' was the real answer that he would have liked to provide but there was no way he'd manage to articulate it. So instead, he mouthed a voiceless :
"Thirsty."
"Yeah, that's what I thought."
The doctor extend his arm toward him and, for a second, he thought he was going to touch his face but the hand went beyond his face to grab something on the nightstand. A glass of water soon appeared in his field of vision, accompanied with a bright yellow stray. The doctor needn't say a word to his patient for him to start drinking. It felt like salvation, an unexpected rain on a desert, alleviating his parched lips and dry throat. When he finally let the straw go, he had drunk half of the glass.
"Good. Can you tell me your name, please?"
His lips parted, ready to answer, but nothing came out. In the meantime, the other man retrieved a small flashlight out of this pocket. He braced himself for what he knew was coming, but the blinding light still left him groaning and turning his face the other direction.
"Enjolras," he then blurted out, out of nowhere.
Yes. Enjolras. That was his name. Of course it was.
"Do you know where you are?"
"A hospital."
"Which city?"
"...Paris?" he offered, tentatively.
The doctor's quick hum of approval confirmed his answer. The latter began to pat his sides, his face and his stomach, leaving Enjolras wincing in the midst of the medical procedure.
"What year is it?"
"2011."
The hands that were now dabbing his neck froze, as did the doctor's face. Enjolras furrowed his brow, waiting for an explanation but none came. Instead, the doctor resumed his professional expression, letting his patient's body be for the time being.
"Alright," he whispered, in a tone that let Enjolras understand that it wasn't 'alright' at all.
"What happened?" he ended up asking, because all the 'alright's, hospital rooms and pains had begun to take their toll on him.
"Traffic collision," the doctor answered, soberly. "You were hit by a car last night. Your arm took most of the impact and your right side has sustained some cuts, you have a slight pneumothorax but it's your head that worries us the most. You had a head trauma due to your fall, your head hit the pavement quite badly."
Enjolras's gaze lost itself somewhere above the doctor's shoulder. An accident? There had been no accident. Not that he could recall at least. He tried to take a deep breath to calm himself down after the bomb that had just been dropped on him, only to be painfully reminded that deep breaths were no longer an option.
"Do you remember anything about the accident?"
He shook his head slightly, scared that any more movement would prove to be a mistake. What about his legs, though? A rush of panic overwhelmed him and he began wiggling his toes frenetically to check everything was ok below his waist. His foot moving beneath the covers was the most comforting sight he could think of there and then. It seemed to amuse the doctor for a second before he asked :
"How old are you?"
"18."
"What is your last memory? The last thing you remember doing?"
Enjolras stared at the ceiling, deep in thoughts. There had been a party to celebrate the end of exam season... Courfeyrac would have ended up in trouble with the police for public drunkenness if it had not been for Comberre, who had swiftly defused the sticky situation... Then they had gone to a midnight screening of the new X-Men, whatever that one was about, he just remembered James McAvoy being in it.
"We went to the post Bac party and we saw a movie..."
There was another noncommittal hum as the doctor scribbled down on the chart. Something was wrong, Enjolras could feel it. He had never been admited to a hospital before but all these questions sounded weird. Wasn't his age supposed to be written down on the chart? Why ask him, then? To see if he knew?
"Sorry but what's going on?"
His voice was tainted by exhaustion but he wanted to get to the bottom of this before passing out once more.
"You were in a traffic collision.."
"Yeah yeah I know that part," he cut off, struggling to make the words come out. "Why... why ask... what I remember?"
The doctor's lips thinned.
"I would appear that the shock against the pavement has damaged your long term memory."
The pounding of his heart was echoing in his ears, deafening him. He swallowed the ball of anxiety that had settled in his throat with difficulty. Calm. He had to stay calm.
"How... How much?" Even his own voice felt eerily distant.
"Four years. It is not uncommon with head injuries, some patients lose more than that. It is what we call retrograde amnesia."
"Retrograde amnesia..." he repeated, in complete disbelief.
"Most patients recover their memory after a while, Enjolras. Through everyday life, they get bits and pieces until they can put the whole puzzle together. It's generally not a life-long condition. What is important here is that your body is in good hands."
Enjolras rested his head deep onto the pillow, as though crushed by the weight of the news. Four years... A lot could happen in four years. He could have become anything in four years! This couldn't be happening! This was all one big joke. Courf must have talked the doctors in on a joke to prank him, there was no other way! In one second, the doctor would lose his solemn tone and Courf and Ferre would come in, laughing their asses off. Right? But no matter how long he waited, no one laughed.
He was about to receive further details about his recovery when a cheerful voice boomed at the door :
"Look who I've found, Apollo!"
Both him and the doctor jumped at the unexpected entrance and turned towards the door. On the threshold, the mystery man from earlier was holding two more people by the shoulders : one slightly smaller, beaming in his direction, the other tall, dark-skinned and distinctively Combeferre. But also distinctively not the Combeferre he remembered.
His heart leaped at the sight of his best friend. Sure, he was still the same, his features had not drastically changed and yet everything about him felt odd. That new haircut, those new clothes (wait a minute was he wearing scrubs?!), this face that was still his but undeniably more... adult! Did he look like that as well?!
"Ferre..."
"Welcome back, Enj' ", Combeferre smiled of his soft, warm smile that had not changed in spite of the years.
Quick on his feet, the doctor left Enjolras's bedside.
"May we have a word outside?"
All of the smiles froze and faded away at the grave tone. Ferre cast Enjolras a worried glance over the physician's shoulder. He suddenly felt very alone, lying down in this bed as the only familiar face was leaving the room. Windows on the wall were allowing him to see enough of the corridor to make out their heads, bowed down in a serious conversation, but none of the conversation itself. As the doctor dropped the "a" bomb, all turned to look at him through the window. The impact of the news was clearly legible on their faces. The blond guy's mouth was agape in disbelief and Ferre began running his fingers endlessly through his hair to calm himself down. The third one, with the unruly black curls, quite simply took off, disappearing from his sight. Enjolras opened his mouth, as though ready to defend himself, to explain, but there was nothing to explain. Then why did he feel like it was his fault?
His headache has tripled. All these events had left him drained and stretching his neck to see through the windows had not helped one bit. His head fell back down onto the pillow, reviewing all of the faces he'd just seen, the raw emotions painted all over them. Sadness. Shock. Distress... He caught one last glance at the ceiling before losing consciousness.
He woke up to the muffled sound of television. After a few seconds of confusion, the impersonality of the room struck him, reminding him of where he was. What had happened. Or rather, what he had been told had happened. Next to him, Combeferre was sat on an armchair, his undivided attention focused on what he was watching. Enjolras blinked. The light was not as unbearable as before, he noticed. Looking through the window, he saw the faint glow of dawn. A new day as himself. Whoever that meant now.
"What're you watching?"
Combeferre flinched at the weak rattle his voice had come to. He lowered the sound with the remote and oriented the armchair to face Enjolras.
"A documentary on Komodo Dragons," he explained softly. His hand reached for the glass with the plastic straw and presented it to him. "Apparently they can see a prey as far as 300 metres away."
"How 'bout that," Enjolras exhaled after a long sip.
He rested his head back, his eyes locked in Combeferre's as the latter let out a deep sigh. They stayed like that for a while, revelling in the comfortable silence.
"How are you feeling?" Ferre eventually asked.
To be fair, he was feeling a lot more alert than the last time he had awoken, though his body still felt mushy. The room had stopped spinning on itself, which was a considerable improvement.
"Younger, I guess."
"Yeah I've heard..."
Enjolras had so many questions and yet he couldn't bring himself to voice them aloud. As though putting them into actual words would make this whole situation real. But it was real. It wasn't a joke. Combeferre was proof of it, him and the changes that four years had left on his being. Better rip the bandaid now.
"Have... things changed a lot?"
"Yeah..," Combeferre nodded with a sympathetic smiled. "But not in a bad way, you'll see."
He lifted a sluggish hand to rub his eyes, barely feeling the sting of the IV in his arm. They've probably put me on a strict painkiller diet, he thought.
"Do I look as ancient as you?"
His friend laughed quietly.
"Enj', you've been knocked down by a car, antediluvian is the word I'd choose."
" 'Antediluvian' of course that's the goddamn word you'd choose," Enjolras teased, closing his eyes to muster what little strength he had. "What's with the scrubs?"
Combeferre was still wearing those hospital scrubs he had seen him in earlier. Or maybe they were new ones. How long had he been asleep exactly?
"Oh, that. I'm an extern here, it's a teaching hospital. My shift ended what, two hours ago?"
Extern... Ferre was in med school... Med school. Damn. Sure, they had talked about what they were going to do after high school but it still came as a surprise. He remembered Combeferre talking about either medicine or biology, whereas Courf... Courf!
"What about Courf?" he exclaimed, disrupting the calm atmosphere.
"Courf is fine. He was here yesterday with Eponine and Bahorel. He wanted to stay but he's working tomorrow so I've sent him back to the flat with a good kick in his ass. He's demanded hourly updates though."
"Atta boy..."
Or course, he didn't mention that he had no idea who "Eponine and Bahorel" were. Maybe that was implied. Combeferre and Courfeyrac had been his best friends since the first year of high school, the years that he had not lost. Those people, on the other hand, belong to another past.
"The flat?" he asked after a moment, furrowing his brow.
"Yup, our flat, yours, mine and his. In Belleville. It's quite nice when Courf doesn't let his socks everywhere, you'll see."
'You'll see'. It was strange to think that he had already seen that place before. He had met those strangers before, hell, apparently he had befriended them! And yet there was no trace of that in his memory.
He had kept his eyes closed, thinking of all he had to ask, all that was vital to ask but the words were mingling in his mind and all of the awareness he had felt earlier was melting away. The warm touch of Combeferre's hand on his shoulder reminded him of another tender caress he had received last night.
"I'll leave you be. You need rest, Enj'."
"No..."
"Yes."
"Who was there last night?" His voice was nothing but a whisper.
"There will be time for all that when you wake up."
It was clear in his voice that Combeferre wasn't leaving his friend with a light heart but because he had to. The last thing Enjolras heard before plunging head first into slumber was the ever so quiet steps of a tired med student leaving the room.