Chapter Text
Lisa comes to in a hospital room on a firm, unforgiving bed. It’s quiet save for a slow beeping from a nearby monitor.
She sits up quickly to scan her surroundings. White walls, machines, white curtain.
Her eyes drop to scan over her own body, but no discernible injury could be found.
Legs, fine. Torso, fine. Arms are…Her eyes catch the metal on her finger.
That’s not her ring.
She puts her hands on the bed to push herself further against its back and does another sweep of the room.
Glow of a monitor, some beepy machines she’s connected to, and…huh.
A brunette asleep in a rigid chair next to her.
Lisa takes a moment to study her. Long dark hair that’s a bit lighter at the ends. Her arms are crossed over herself, the bracelets on her wrist making light tinkling noises when she breathes.
Sharpest cheek bones she’s ever seen. Awfully imposing for someone fast asleep.
Eventually, perhaps from the weight of Lisa’s observation, the woman rouses.
Lisa watches as she blinks herself awake. Piercing eyes, too, Lisa muses to herself as the woman joins the waking world.
Green eyes widen as they take in Lisa’s sitting form.
“Oh my god.” She rushes her. “Oh my god, Lisa.” Suddenly two warm hands cup her face, gently tilting her head closer up to the brunette and oh,
They’re kissing. Well, the brunette is kissing her. The kiss is fierce, and had Lisa not been propped up in bed she’d have fallen backwards with the force of it.
The woman pulls back quickly, seemingly unaware of Lisa’s shock and lack of reciprocation. “Oh I shouldn’t have done that I need to be gentle with your head,” she says as fingers gently toy with the ends of the blonde’s hair. It makes Lisa shiver as she stares. “You gave me a proper fright, you did. How are you feeling? Can I get you something to drink? Oh I need to tell the doctor…” she keeps talking, rambling really, while her eyes move all over Lisa. The words stop only when Lisa goes to clear her throat.
She takes a long look at the brunette now that she’s much closer, and studies the features she watched earlier as she slept. As she lingers on the woman’s face, she feels her head start to pound.
“I-I’m so sorry,” her voice is thick with disuse. She presses on, “I’m not sure I know who you are.”
The silence is heavy. Maybe it’s her sudden headache, but the air is swiftly sucked from the small room.
The brunette’s eyes shine with tears as she brings her hands from Lisa’s face and hair to cover her own mouth. To cover a sob, maybe. Lisa misses the grounding contact of those hands almost instantly.
The brunette quickly strides to the door, opens it, and declares, “She’s up, but something is wrong. Come now,” she growls that last bit. Lisa might find that command attractive had she not been so confused and if her head wasn’t hurting more by the minute.
The doctor comes in shortly after to give Lisa an orientation test. Her brow furrows with each answer Lisa gives, which makes Lisa feel like there’s something she’s not in on. Like everyone is in on a cruel joke about her. This feeling only intensifies as Lisa goes on to recall what she can from before she woke in hospital.
“So, last you remember you were at home with your wife, Becky, and what else?”
Lisa thinks. “I, um, we. We’d just had a row. I don’t remember what about. Becky slammed the door and left and I…that’s it. I’m sorry.”
“Lisa what year is it?” The doctor asks gently.
Lisa feels herself begin to sweat. There’s never a good reason someone would ask that question, is there?
“2021?” she answers hesitantly. She couldn’t be sure, but it’s the truest answer she can give.
She knows she’s answered wrong based on the deep, shaking breath the brunette lets out from behind the doctor.
“Well go on. What year is it?” Lisa clips.
“It appears you have some amnesia, Ms. Swain,” the doctor begins regretfully. “As it’s 2025.”
The room spins. Her head is throbbing.
It’s been four years? How can she forget FOUR years?
“I-okay.” Deep breaths, Swain. “Where is my wife? And Betsy?” Had she not been so thrown she might have noticed the brunette stiffen in response to her question.
The doctor clears her throat. “They’re in the waiting area. Do you wish to see them?”
It takes approximately two minutes for Becky to come into the room. Her hair is short, which is new, but she doesn’t have time to dwell on it as her Betsy breezes in behind her. Well this isn’t quite her Betsy. Her sweet, albeit a bit stroppy, barely-a-teenager Betsy. She’s taller and more mature in her face. She tries to study more of her daughter, but her vision is swimming. She reaches her hand out to the teen for something, someone to ground her.
“Mum I’m so glad to see you. The doctor told us your memory is…I was just so scared. You wouldn’t wake up for days! They found you in so much blood I thought you’d-” She shakes her head to free herself of the possibility, “I’m so glad you’re awake. That’s what matters.”
Lisa hugs her tightly then. “I’m here, darling. We’ll figure this out. It’s going to be okay. We’re all here. You, me, and your mum and it’s going to be okay.” Suddenly something falls to the ground on the opposite side of the room. Lisa follows the sound to find the brunette, her hands holding nothing and the purse that looks to have been previously held between them on the floor. Eventually the woman snaps out of whatever stupor she’s in, picks up her bag, and rushes for the door. “I’m going to get some air.” And with a passing hand against Betsy’s shoulder she’s gone.
“Bets. Who is that?” Lisa asks. Her teeth are clenched together, her headache near unbearable. She’s feels nauseous.
Betsy looks pained, and even a bit surprised considering she is aware of Lisa’s lack of memory.
“That’s Carla. Carla Connor. She’s your fiancée.”
And Lisa’s vision goes black.
*
Lisa wakes slowly at the end of a fiercely whispered conversation. There are four voices she can make out with her eyes still closed: The doctor, Becky, Betsy, and Carla.
Her fiancée Carla.
From what she can hear it’s decided Becky will take her back to the house. Lisa, Becky, and Betsy. Just the three of them.
“It would be easy on her if she had the family she remembers.”
“Of course it would. How convenient for you, that is.”
“Well,” Lisa could make out this voice as the doctor’s. She sounds a little unsure. “It seems that what would be best at this time would be to provide as little stress as possible. Ms. Swain has been through a traumatic event and has suffered an injury to match. Too much exertion, in this case making sense of the past four years, may seriously hinder the healing process.”
There’s a beat of silence before it’s Betsy who speaks.
“Come on, Carla. We need to do what’s best for her. We’ll figure the rest out in time. I know we all want her to get well.”
Lisa opens her eyes to see Becky looking smug, and Carla looking, well, shattered was really the only word for it.
“I want to do what’s best. If you think medically it’s better not to rock the boat too much I can stand that, but you,” her voice was now like ice directed only at Becky. “You need to care for her correctly while you’re in our home. If you try anything, I mean anything I will-“
“I know how to take care of my wife, thank you.”
And the room goes silent. The two are in a stand off. Carla looks like she’s going to throttle Becky right here at hospital. The tension is buzzing with animosity everyone else is too afraid to touch. Except Lisa, that is. Injury and all.
“What about-,” her voice still weak. “Where is Carla going to stay?”
Four pairs of eyes land on her. Carla softens, and Becky looks fed up by the conversation.
Eventually Carla speaks and it’s so gentle Lisa can hardly believe this is the same woman she heard spit venom at Becky not two minutes ago. “I’ll be around, it’s my house too after all. I can stay with Roy until…” she trails off.
Lisa isn’t sure what would need to happen, but the thought of what comes after ‘until’ makes her shut her eyes, a small prick of pain between her eyebrows making itself known. She pinches the bridge of her nose.
“I’ll stay with Roy.” Carla says definitively in an attempt to put an end to Lisa’s upset.
And so the decision has been finalized.
There’s little conversation after this, and Lisa is eventually discharged. She is seen out with her wife and daughter by her side as they head for the house. “Number six” Betsy called it.
Carla made herself scarce since the decision was made. Apparently wanted to get ahead of them to gather her things before Lisa arrived.
The entire drive back Lisa’s mind kept flitting back to Carla. She couldn’t spend too long on it so soon per the doctor’s orders, but this proved harder than she thought.
What happened to her? Where are the past four years of her memory? What could have possibly happened to her marriage? And how on earth did she already get engaged? To someone who looked like Carla, no less.
There she goes again.
Focus on healing. If not for yourself, for Betsy. You’ll sort the rest later. Lisa chastised herself.
As the car moves to a halt Lisa is resolute. Focus on healing, on normalcy, on Betsy. She can figure out the rest later.