Chance Encounter - A Continuation of Hanover Street
by Fan Of Han

~~~~~

The warmth that encased his body was fresh, crisp and yet somehow soothing. An odd scent that he couldn’t discern fragranced the air as he breathed in through his nose; his lips, like his mouth, were dry, and would not open.

Slowly, feeling returned to him, and he soon wished the oblivion of insentience would reclaim him. There was more pain that joined that of his head, and that pain was growing. He could feel the new pain pounding with every heartbeat and he wanted desperately for sleep to curtail it, to take him back into its comforting embrace, to save him from the fast increasing distress that wakefulness was bringing him, but it was no use. As his awareness increased, so did his pain, and as his pain increased, so his ability to relax and return to the painless void of a drug induced coma faded from his grasp.

He remembered very little. There had been a greater pain before the darkness, screams from someone, from his own lips, perhaps. And there had been fire, a great deal of it, swirling and dancing, mesmerizing and beautiful. And leaving nothing but charred remains in its wake, except where one unfortunate soul had survived, a mass of blood and blackness, moaning.

Blood. Yes, there had been much of that, too. And that had definitely been his. He could remember the shock of seeing it pouring from wounds, and the surprise at feeling no pain, only the warmth of the sticky redness as it soaked his uniform. But he felt pain now, heard voices.

Some were voices he was remembering, they must be. Cimino?

No. Cimino had been dead for almost two years now. He remembered the moment he had found him, faceless, another corpse.

No, these voices were different, new, unheard before.

But why had Cimino died? How had he come to find a man that way?

He shivered involuntarily and tried to force the memory down. It still haunted his nightmares even now. But Why? Cimino, Hyer, Bart, Lucas, Sellinger, who were these names, these men?

Then a noise louder than a gunshot ricocheted off the inside of his skull and a voice that was far too loud said,

“I’m just checking on him now.”

Then there was another loud noise – he realized that it was an insanely deafening door closing as it had opened some seconds earlier – and then there was relative quiet once more.

He felt small hands on his chest, at his wrist, heard the rustling of material, the sound of gentle whispers.

“This looks nasty. However you managed to walk away from such a thing, I don’t think we’ll ever know. All of these bruises, all of that blood. You know, you weren’t expected to live when they brought you in to us.”

He wanted to open his eyes, to find the source of this voice, to see which person would talk to themselves about his condition.

Finally, the ability to move was returned to him, though with little strength to use it. His fingers twitched as he tried to move them, once and once only, and then his arms were too heavy. He managed to moved his head minutely so that it was turned slightly to the side, and he found that this was more comfortable. It was easier to breathe. His mouth opened, though slowly, and a sweet lungful of fresh, new air filled his mind and body – and brought agony with it.

The air he had inhaled was suddenly no longer so sweet as a gasp of pain joined it, followed by the exhalation of the life-giving air in a long, low groan. How could he be in so much pain?

The leaden weight of his eyelids slowly responded to his wishes, and he was met with a brilliant whiteness. Oh, God, he wasn’t dead, was he?

No, he couldn’t be. The brightness gradually subsided until he could see enough to know that he was lying down. That warmth must be bedclothes, the softness beneath his head, a pillow. And he could feel enough to know that there were no clothes between them and his skin. And, moving his eyes, for his head would not turn again, he could see that the intense luminosity that filled the room was coming from the windows to his right.

Oh, God, it hurt so much! What was this? Where in hell was he? What would cause so much pain? But then a small hand slid under his head and lifted, clearing his airway, aiding his lungs, and it only hurt more. He groaned again and winced, trying to move away from the discomfort.

“Hello! It’s nice to see you awake at last!” a soft female voice was saying to him.

He felt an awful scratching in his throat, like a daddy-long-legs in a jar battering itself against the sides of his airway, tickling and burning, irritating, and he knew what was coming.

Oh, this was going to hurt.

With a reflexive deep breath and a short gasp, he coughed and coughed and coughed.

“That’s it, you’re doing fine, come on,” she was saying.

It wrenched the breath from his lungs, the strength from his limbs and it was absolute agony.

When it was over, she was cradling his body and his head, resting against her upper arm and shoulder, lolled back and he gasped quietly, repeatedly. One of his hands held her wrist as tightly as he could manage, his body trembling; he must have grabbed it without thinking.

“It’s alright,” she was saying to him. “That’s it, that’s good. Do you want to lie down again?”

He tried to answer, tried to respond, but all he could do was groan again.

“Alright,” she answered, and slowly lowered him back down.

He lay there, gasping, chest heaving, just trying, for the first few minutes, to get beyond the pain that now threatened to drive him back into the unconsciousness he would have welcomed. Now he fought desperately to escape it.

“Would you like some water?”

He managed to look up at her and she took it for the answer that it was.

Lifting his head from the pillow, she brought a glass to his lips. Then she tipped the glass toward him and wonderful, cool water eased his burning throat and aching head.

“Ohhh,” he whispered when she took the glass away, and he settled back into the soft white of the bedding.

“Now you’ve had quite an accident, so you try and keep still. I’m going to fetch your visitor.”

That voice, that accent. Every nuance of it told him he was safe. But there was something wrong.

Why was he alone? Why couldn’t he remember anything? And what was the awful feeling he had at the back of his mind?

Desperately, he tried to move, take her hand, call out, anything to stop her leaving.

She was halfway to the door when he managed a strangled,

“Wait..!”

And then he was coughing again.

“You’re going to do yourself some damage if you don’t stop doing that,” she admonished him gently once he could hear her again.

“S-Sor…ry…”

“It’s alright, Major, I’m only joking.”

He could hear the smile in her voice. But wait. Major? Was she still talking to him?

“Wh…W-Where…”

“Hospital, Major. You were injured. But everything’s alright, now. You’re quite safe here.”

Hospital. That explains the weird smell.

“You’re…English…” he managed, wheezing as he opened her eyes to study her face.

She was very pretty, big blue eyes, dark hair, very proper sounding voice, nurse’s uniform. She reminded him of someone. But of whom?

She laughed gently.

“Yes, Major, I’m English. Not surprising really; you’re in England.”

He frowned as best he could.

“But…I’m…’Merican…”

Her light-hearted expression dissolved slowly into a puzzled frown.

“I know that, Major, do you... Major, do you know anything about where you are?”

The corner of his mouth twitched up.

“Hospital?”

But she did not smile at the joke.

“Can you tell me your name?”

Slowly, his own smile faded. No, he could not, although it was on the tip of his tongue.

“Where in America are you from?”

“I’m…from…”

Where was he from? He had known the answer until he had started to say it, he was sure of it! So why couldn’t he remember now?

“How old are you, Major?”

He narrowed his eyes and turned his head away. He didn’t want to play this game anymore.

“Leave me…alone…”

She leant down to him.

“Major, what year is it?”

There was utter silence in the room for a very long time. There was so much going through his mind, the desperate attempts to find information, the frantic efforts to remember what had happened, the noise, the pain, the fear-

He couldn’t remember.

He looked at her again, trying to find the words.

He couldn’t remember his name. He couldn’t remember his age. He couldn’t remember what year it was.

He couldn’t remember anything. Anything.

Fear welled up around him like a black tide, coldness enveloped him where he lay, a cold sweat broke out across his body and he began to tremble again. His heart thundered and his vision darkened.

Oh, God, his mind whispered as screams and cries and crackles and explosions echoed in his ears. I’m dying.

~~~~~