Work Text:
RIGHT AWAY
"Is the memory loss really that bad?" Jonathan asks.
"I--" I try to say, but they're not listening.
"Head injuries are tricky. He's experiencing a lot of confusion."
"But he'll be okay?" asks Jonathan.
"Probably," says the doctor but without conviction.
"Hold on," I say, but they're still not listening.
"What do you mean, probably?" Jonathan says.
"Are you asking for the definition of the word?" the doctor says without looking up from whatever he's writing down.
"I haven't--" I try again.
"I don't need the definition," Jonathan says, and from the look on his face and the way he suddenly looms like an oncoming lorry with the brakes gone, the doctor is lucky there's not a Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure for Jonathan to back him into. "I need an educated, reliable medical opinion."
The doctor looks up, blinks slowly, and is either about to call for security or about to call Jonathan a right prick when I finally see my chance.
"Oi!" I say, louder than I mean to so that it makes the bells go off in my head again. I sway and, to my surprise, Jonathan catches me by the arm to steady me.
"Listen," I say in a whisper, "I haven't got, like, amnesia or anything. Leastways, I don't reckon I do. I mean, you don't know what you don't know, you know? I've just gone a bit wobbly--I just need some time…" I trail off, because they're both watching me like I'm a raving person with a head injury which I reckon I am, but also because I really do. I just need time, and it is true, isn't it? You don't know what you don't know? Maybe I have got some memory loss. Or maybe I could have...?
Suddenly I see a path ahead where maybe if I backtrack and say, 'ay, actually, what's my name again?' and conveniently forget I've just been fired, maybe Jonathan will forget as well. You can't fire a bloke who you backed into a Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure and who got amnesia about it. But who does that? Even if I was the sort of lad to pretend I've got a brain injury I haven't exactly got, how is that remotely sustainable? And maybe… maybe it doesn't have to go that far. Maybe, I think, feeling Jonathan's hand still strong on my elbow, this is just the reset we need.
"I don't care if he remembers a thousand digits of pi," the doctor says before I can say anything else,"you'll need to keep an eye on him, for at least a fortnight ideally."
They argue about my emergency contact and why it has to be Jonathan even though the doctor clearly doesn't care if I go home with a giraffe so long as I don't clog up his A&E, and then we have the most awkward drive to quite a large house in the nicest part of Croydon I didn't know existed.
"My cat," I say, when we've pulled into the drive, because I've honestly only just remembered Gollum--I don't think that's from the knock on the head, just that even I'm not sad bastard enough for my first thought in a life-flashes-before-your-eyes type situation to be, 'oh, my cat!" Anyway, I had just been thinking how much Gollum would appreciate such a big house to roam 'round in.
"Your what?" Jonathan says. He's just shut the car off and it's blessedly quiet. I didn't realize how much the road noise had been grating against my skull. But it also means I can even more clearly hear the utter disdain for feline companions in Jonathan's voice.
"I've got to go home tomorrow," I say, "to fetch my cat."
"Can't someone else watch him?"
I don't say that there isn't anyone else. I just shake my head. I don't want this to be the thing that ends my second, less creative but more sustainable plan, the plan I've just now come up with, of using this opportunity to give Jonathan the chance to get to know me beyond his least favorite employee he's ever given a concussion to, and to maybe change his mind about making me his ex-employee, but Gollum can't be the casualty to this, admittedly, still rather thin plot.
Jonathan sighs like my wee cat is trying to return a used toilet brush so when he opens his mouth I plunge ahead before he can get a word out.
"He's not a big cat," I say. "Very quiet. Very, eh, unique. Actually, he's quite rare. He was very expensive."
I feel like I might be pushing my luck but also like I've managed to speak a language he understands. And anyway it's not a lie--I've spent a fortune on Gollum, what with vet bills and medicine and, just once, a little sweater that said, "You've got to be kitten me!", which he tore to shreds overnight.
Jonathan deflates.
"Fine," he says. "But you'll keep him well out of my way."
BEFORE THE CAT
It probably should be weird that Jonathan Forest and I are standing in his bathroom having a conversation about anything at all but I reckon nearly every conversation we've ever had has taken place less than a meter from a toilet, so that's not the weird part. The weird part it's that we're standing in his bathroom where I've just pretended to have a piss while simultaneously pretending to run a bath (that I forgot to plug up) while actually secretly calling my co-conspirator slash co-worker to relate my plan to convince our boss, for the foreseeable future, that I can't remember left from right while also admitting, via a toilet-related miracle, I've just remembered my cat.
"And has," Jonathan says. "I know it hasn't been long but is anything coming back yet?"
He asks it with a frown and a little squint, not like he doesn't believe I've got amnesia, but like he absolutely believes it. He also asks it like he absolutely believes I could be getting my memory back by now. And I know it's not me he's worried about, leastways not in any way that doesn't affect his liability insurance, but he is still worried and suddenly something occurs to me.
I'm standing in his bathroom. That's the thing I realize. I'm in his home. Even a prick who only cared about his bottom line wouldn't actually care enough to take me back to his to look after me an' that. That is, assuming he's not just brought me here because he's planning to serial kill me in his large basement.
I dismiss the possibility.
"Actually," I say, "it is."
To his credit, he looks more surprised than relieved. "Really?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say. "I mean, I reckon, anyway. You don't know what you don't know, you know?"
He crosses his arms, suddenly dubious, not angry or annoyed that I've lied, even though, well I haven't exactly admitted to lying and maybe I haven't got to, but more like this is the thing he doesn't believe… that I'm getting better. Leave it to Jonathan Forest to think I need his permission to get well.
"Are you sure?" he squints. "The doctor said--"
"He said it should clear up and… well, I was really fuzzy at first but, I dunno, I remember my job, I remember everyone there. I remember you."
He watches me down the length of his nose and it's gone quiet and suddenly maybe it is weird, because I've admitted to remembering everything we've ever said to each other, and yet here I am, in his home, in his shirt, and it's something at least that he hasn't thrown me out, so I press my luck.
"Speaking of fuzzy," I say. "I've got this cat…"
OVER CHICKEN
"We need to have a talk and we can do it over chicken or we can do it here."
Jonathan gives me a look from where he's sat at his desk with my cat and it's the sort of look that would probably come right before a sneaky uppercut in the right sort of pub but since we're in the nice part of Croydon Jonathan just snorts.
"What exactly do we have to talk about?"
I take a breath because I'm not the type to shout and, to be honest, concentrating on the chicken or maybe just concentrating on how I'm going to handle this prick being a prick (or maybe even having a bloody concussion) has left me with a headache.
"You treating me like crap," I say
"I do not treat you like crap," he says.
"You kind of do, you kind of always have, and you've kind of been doing the same with your family."
He stands up at that, not like he's going to come at me, but more like I've come after him.
"And I know--" I say before he can argue, "that families are complicated and that I don't know anything about yours--"
"You don't."
I lean away from the door frame and step into the room and sort of wish I was the sort of bloke to poke a finger into another bloke's chest but I ain't, so I just stand as tall as I can and try to ignore the flush of anger or maybe even embarrassment that's heating my cheeks and making my head pound.
"But I know how you treat your employees. Because I remember. I remember everything. I know you, Jonathan Forest, and I knew you well enough to know that I had to do something radically stupid to save my job and the jobs of my friends and so I pretended to have amnesia rather than try to reason with you. And I thought it might have been going okay but then I seen you with your mum and dad and even your fucking nan, I mean… fuck, Jonathan. Your nan! Then you basically fired the whole lot of 'em right in front of me. So."
I trail off, partly because I've run out of steam but mostly because he's still not said a word. He's just standing there with his mouth open and even Gollum is staring at me from his place at Jonathan's feet like even he can't believe I'd do something so ridiculous.
I step back. The room is incredibly quiet.
Jonathan finally closes his mouth.
"You don't have amnesia?" he says, and he's so quiet, the way Les is quiet and I'm not sure what that means.
"I was really confused at first, and then the doctor said… and you don't really know what you don't know, you know? So how was I to know? But I was pretty sure… and then you jumped to conclusions and… it just seemed… easier somehow."
There's a beep from the kitchen, some timer I've left on. It goes silent again and Jonathan is still just… blank.
"I'll leave in the morning," I say softly. "Unless you want me to leave tonight. I can get a hotel, or well, it's not your problem is it?"
"Sam," Jonathan says at last, completely unreadable. The timer beeps again.
"I'll just get that," I say, and leave him standing in his study and the bright lights of the kitchen are blurred because, actually, I've gone a bit teary somehow.
I hit the timer and wipe my eyes and start putting food away, but between sorting out the peas in the fridge and going back to the island for the chicken, Jonathan's come in.
"You shouldn't leave tonight," he says. He's scowling but he's not shouting.
"Why?" I ask and plant my hands on the island like he couldn't shift me if he tried anyway, and I want to say something to get under his skin, to get him to express anything other than nothing but I haven't got it in me.
"Because I said I'd look after you," he says, and I start to argue but he raises one of those too-big hands and finally looks a little annoyed. "Because you didn't fake a concussion, you didn't collude with the NHS to give yourself six stitches, a bloody shirt, and an ambulance ride." He takes a breath and there's a beat and then he says, "Did you?" so deadpan it takes me a moment to laugh.
But I do laugh, and against all fucking odds he laughs with me, until I put a hand to my head and sway a bit from the rush of it.
"Bloody hell," I say, still sort of laughing though my eyes are screwed shut. He's beside me in a moment with a stool and urges me to sit.
"See?" he says as he steadies me and pulls up another stool to sit beside me. "You're just not that good of an actor."
When I finally recover a bit and look at him he's still half smiling and maybe it's just the relief of probably not getting sued or maybe I've tapped into that vein of mania just before the serial killing starts, but he looks lighter than I've seen him, well, ever.
"Shall I get you some paracetamol and we have this chicken and veg like sort of normal people?" he asks.
I start to stand up for plates but he motions for me to sit back down.
"And we'll talk about you being a dick some more?" I say.
"We will not," he says, but after he fetches me the medicine and a glass of water and pulls the peas back out of the fridge he adds, "maybe tomorrow."
AFTER THE GUINEA PIG
"I'm your boss--," Jonathan says, sort of panicked as he leaps away from me, and that's not really the response you want after you've just kissed a man. "And you have amnesia," he adds. "For all we know you've got a boyfriend.
"Well if I have he's fucking terrible because I've been missing for a week and he hasn't texted," I say and try not to chase him as he inches away from me, but he can't go far because he backs into the kitchen counter and somewhere in a less 'fuckfuckfuck' part of my mind I think about the thing my mum used to say, about how most of the important moments in your life will happen in a kitchen.
Jonathan puts a hand through his hair like if he doesn't he might put his hands somewhere else. On me, for example.
"You're in a vulnerable position. I'm taking advantage of you." he says with too much certainty, like he'd just kissed me and not the other way around.
"You're not," I say, "I just kissed you, not the other way around."
"Yes, but you're confused, Samwise," he says, and it's pretty condescending for a man who, actually, doesn't know what the fuck he's talking about.
"Don't call me that," I say, "and quit acting like nothing can happen unless you make it happen. I ain't got to be outta my head to want to kiss you."
He won't look at me. I think he'd have already left the room but the only escape routes he has are blocked by either me or a pile of boxes of Christmas decorations.
"Anyway," I say, and maybe I am confused, maybe I'm still a bit under the spell of soft lips and fuzzy santa guinea pig, because I can't stop myself. "I ain't confused, I mean, not anymore."
Now he does look at me. Maybe that's worth it.
"Why?" he asks, wary. "What does that even mean?"
"It means…" I say, and take a breath. I could still back out, I could say I don't know what I'm saying, that actually he's right and I'm just a poor concussed idiot who doesn't know what he wants, but… now that I've started, I decide to take off-ramp at last.
"I haven't been for a while," I say at last.
"You haven't been… confused?"
"I haven't had amnesia," I say, a bit more snippy than I may deserve to be. "I might have never had it, but you don't really know what you don't know, you know?"
He blinks at me and it's quiet long enough that I almost think this conversation is over but then he says, "You don't have amnesia?"
"No," I say, and I'm annoyed, maybe at him for being so daft but mostly at myself for letting it get this far.
"Are you sure?"
"Fucksake, Jonathan, honestly, who could be sure! But I don't think so. Anyway, I did need someone to help me--I still do. And you needed help--"
That was the wrong thing to say, obviously, because he straightens defiantly.
"Wait," he says, "are you--are you suggesting that you lied to me for my own benefit?"
"No, you bellend," I say. "That came later, remember?"
"No, I don't. Perhaps I've got amnesia as well."
There's nothing for me to say to that so the room is quiet for a long time until he says, dangerously quietly, "What was the end game, Sam? What were you trying to accomplish? Did you think this was the only way I'd help you recover?"
Wasn't it? I want to say, but that's not fair. I'm not sure that's true now.
"How was I to know?" I say, trying to match him in intensity but a bloody EU summit couldn't do that. "I didn't mean to at first, but… well you'd just fired me and my whole team. Then you made assumptions and I just saw an opportunity for you to see me as a person, get to know me, and maybe, I dunno, reconsider."
"You think that's how I make business decisions" he says, "that I hire and fire people based on how much I like them?"
I don't have time to answer because that seems to give him another idea, an idea I think maybe I'm not gonna like, because he steps forward, almost as close as when I'd kissed him and now it's my turn to be backed against the island countertop.
"And this is how you decided to accomplish that?" he says, gesturing between us with one hand and I realize what he means, what he's thinking. And that knocks all the anger and annoyance right outta me, because he doesn't deserve to think that; nobody does, to believe someone's only kissed you to save their job.
"No," I say, gently as possible, "absolutely not, that wasn't the plan."
"Plan?" he says with a short, bitter laugh. "There's a plan now?" He shakes his head and moves away, finally gives me some space. "How can I trust you now, Sam?"
I take a breath, because I've really fucked it. There's not much coming back from this so I don't try.
"You can't," I say.
He looks at me, and it's an equal mix of confusion and hurt.
"At least you've got no reason to. But apart from the very small matter of not having amnesia,--" he snorts at that, "--I never lied to you. And I never meant for you--for this to be more than… I never meant to even like you, much less… sort of fall for you a bit. But I have."
He's been quiet and that's very Jonathan of him, but now he goes completely unreadable.
After a while he sighs. "Could you just…" he says at last and at least it's not angry, even if I can't tell what it is, "just give me some time? I don't know… what to do with…" he makes another gesture between us but it's different than last time, "...any of this."
I don't sleep, not in any restful way anyway. I'd left Jonathan standing in the kitchen hours ago but I heard him in the hall at one point, maybe even outside my room. Then I heard the shower going in his ensuite when I got up a while back to use the toilet which means he hasn't slept either. But it's been quiet for at least a half hour when I finally give up and head downstairs for a 4:00 am cup of coffee, and I'm so exhausted that at first I think the figure sitting at the island with a mug of tea might be a hallucination.
Jonathan's only turned on the light over the hob so the kitchen is dim and yellow when I stop at the edge of the light, not sure if he wants to see me so soon, even if, in some ways, it feels like ages since we were here together.
Then he stands up and fetches another mug and puts the kettle on so I sit opposite him. We don't speak. We just listen to the kettle and the ticking of the clock and the wild sounds of Gollum somewhere having his nocturnal zoomies.
The guinea pig is where I'd left him on the bartop and I pick him up, give him a little pat.
"What will you name him?" Jonathan asks after a moment, voice soft and low.
"I dunno," I say, a little surprised by the topic.
"I suppose Frodo is too obvious," he says.
I shrug. "Could be. Maybe… Fatty Lumpkin?"
He frowns with his eyebrows but it doesn't reach his mouth. "Did you just make that up?" he asks.
"No," I say, deciding to take the risk of falling back into my pattern of not missing an opportunity to take the piss, "'course not. That's from Fellowship, that is. Do you not remember Tom Bombadil's pony? The pony all the other ponies loved?"
He tilts his head thoughtfully. "Was he in the films?"
"The--" I say, incredulous, "have you actually not read the books?"
"I have, but not since I was, I dunno, twelve."
"Christ. I read them once a year. I know it's, like, the story of a war and good and evil, but it comforts me. Always has. Especially since…" I stop myself. It might be the way his face is so soft in the low light or the lack of sleep or even the fucking concussion, but for the first time since I tried and failed to do therapy, I actually want to talk about it.
The kettle goes and he gets up, pours me a cuppa and slides over the cream.
"I can almost," he says when he's sat back across from me, "almost..." and there's real emphasis here, "see why you lied to me before, but what about now?"
I blink at my tea, and then at him. "What about now?" I say. "I've told you the truth. I know you fired me, I remember. I'm not trying to--"
"No," he says, sliding a hand out to stop me. "I don't mean… not work, not now. Let's talk about that later. I mean whatever you're not telling me. You've seen my closets, literally and figuratively, you've met my family, you know the name of my housekeeper, but apart from being morally dubious and making a decent roast, I don't know anything about you."
His eyes are dark and soft and he's trying. This is the most I've seen him try maybe ever. Shouldn't I-- do I owe it to him, to myself, to try as well?
I swallow and my throat's gone dry, but the tea's too hot to neck it. I have a sip.
"My mum used to read me Tolkien," I say after I've burned my tongue, "when I was little, I mean. She'd do the voices an' all…"
Then we sit there in the warm kitchen light and I tell him about my family and how it's just me and Gollum now. He listens and frowns and is quiet and still until, when I've finished, he reaches out to touch Fatty where I'm still holding him so that we end up holding hands. I don't tell him that my flat's the way it is because it doesn't feel like home and I reckon it never will, and I don't tell him the closest thing I've felt to, well, anything at all that wasn't something close to despair has been right here in this house, in this kitchen, but I don't have to.
Anyway, there's time for that.
AFTER HE QUIT
"I can't believe…" Jonahtan says, and I can't read the look on his face but no conversation that ever took place between two people sat on a bed in a Premier Inn that started with "I can't believe" has probably ever been good.
"Jonathan," I say, all apologetically and I mean it, but he's shaking his head and I know I've fucked it. I mean I've known I've fucked since basically the beginning but I'm about to have that theory proven.
"I can't believe," he says at last, "that it took you this long."
"I wanted to--" I start and then correct myself, "no, actually, I didn't want to tell you because after a while I just wished it hadn't been true, that I hadn't lied to you in the first place, but I didn't know how--"
He turns to me and reaches out to stop me with a hand on my arm and he doesn't look angry exactly, he might even look… amused.
"No, Sam," he says, "I mean that I can't believe it took you this long."
It's not that he smiles because he doesn't really, it's more the way he says it. It's the emphasis, and suddenly I know.
He already knows.
He already knew!
For how long?
"You knew!" I squeak embarrassingly, then, "how long?"
Now he is smiling, like he's been waiting for this for weeks, and for all I fuckin' know he has.
"Since you accurately, if inexpertly, roasted a chicken in my kitchen."
"Since--hold on. What you mean inexpertly? That was a bangin' fucking roast, I don't remember you complainin' at the time. But what makes you think a man with amnesia can't do a roast?"
He doesn't quite roll his eyes but it's a near thing.
"Am I Mr. Darcy?" he asks. "Mr. Thornton? Do you imagine I'm from a different century where I don't have Google? That's just not how it works. It wasn't exactly the chicken that gave you away but it did make me suspect."
"And you didn't think you should tell me?" I ask. "You didn't want to clue me in, just wanted to watch me make a fool of myself?"
"That is very rich, Samwise, coming from a man who told his boss (and his boss's entire family) that he had amnesia so he could keep his job, and then continued to perpetuate that ridiculous charade, also very inexpertly I might add, for three weeks."
"Alright, alright," I say, hands up. "Fair enough."
He shrugs in agreement against me and that's something at least. He hasn't gotten up and left. We're still sat on this bed hip to hip and he's just watching his hands which he rubs together thoughtfully. It's the only sound in the room.
So. What now?
"What now?" I ask.
"Well," he says like a man who has had a lot of time to practice what he'd say at this point and I reckon he has. "I don't think we can reasonably start over."
The balloon of hope I'd held somewhere inside me deflates a bit, which is when I realize I had any at all.
"No?"
"No."
"I guess not," I say, because I realize he's right. Because somehow it's worse that he knew all along, that he could have catalogued every lie, each one a mark against me. He might have kept a spreadsheet.
"We'll just have to go on from here," he says unexpectedly into the quiet and he's stopped rubbing his hands, just clasping them tightly like he's not sure what to do with them. He looks at me and somehow it's as if he's the one who needs to be reassured this hasn't just blown up in his face.
"Yeah?" I say.
"If you want."
"Course I bloody want, you bellend," I say but gently, and push into his shoulder with mine. I can hardly budge him. He turns to me. He looks so serious I can't help myself.
"I don't suppose there's a chance," I say, "that we just forget this all happened? Even if we are going forward, I mean?"
He looks thoughtful. His lips quirk and I remember how soft they are.
"I suppose I could get hit on the head this time," he says and it sounds more seductive than it should.
"I could have another go as well," I say. "After all you don't know what you don't know, you know? Maybe I have had amnesia all along and I've just forgotten it. If you had it as well we could have our own Fifty First Dates like."
He frowns. He's so close his features are starting to blur. "I don't remember us having a first first date," he says flatly.
"Me neither," I say, smiling. "You're getting the hang of this."
ONE TIME HE DIDN'T HAVE TO
I step back and I catch my foot on the lip of the Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure and the whole fucking thing starts to teeter like it's about to come down on top of me and Jonathan. I spread my arms and push back but I can tell it's a write-off. Time slows and I know I've doomed myself to die in the Croydon branch of Splashes and Snuggles, crushed to death by a shower unit alongside, of all fucking people, Jonathan fucking Forest. I can see from his expression that Jonathan knows it too. What happens, I wonder, before it all comes literally crashing down, when two people die together? Do they go to the afterlife together? For like, eternity and that? Am I about to haunt this bed and bath shop, rattling toilet chains and leaving cold spots in the duvets alongside Jonathan Forest? In perpetuity?
When time starts back it's all in a rush and I can just see and feel a pair of arms flung toward me as I'm pulled or pushed down onto the floor.
There's a lot that happens after that and it involves some shouting and somewhere, somehow, because there always has to be at these types of things, a baby crying, but what I remember before the ambulance arrives, after they've lifted away the Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure, is that there's still something on top of me.
It's Jonathan Forest.
And he's fucking heavy.
"You alright?" I think I say, but it sounds weird, probably because I can't breathe.
"Hnngh," Jonathan says, more a vibration against my chest than a sound. Then, trembling like, he lifts himself up to look down at me, eyes glassy, his pupils dilated wide.
"He's conscious," someone says.
"Try not to move, sir," someone else says.
The baby cries.
Jonathan, though, only stares. Then something happens to his mouth; something I reckon I've only seen in my nightmares.
Jonathan Forest smiles.
"Samwise," he says, remarkably clearly.
"Don't call me--" I start to say, by reflex, but Jonathan's eyes flutter, and he sways and then, much like the Nexa by MERLYN 8mm Sliding Door enclosure, comes crashing down on me.
___
We're in a curtained off bed in A&E. Actually, Jonathan's in bed. I'm standing beside him, holding his hand.
This is a very curious development since just an hour or two ago (I've lost track of time, really) I was his least favorite employee and he was my least favorite boss and also he'd fired me, but after an ambulance ride together and a doctor declaring me free of injuries, head or otherwise, Jonathan had asked for me.
"Is he going to be alright?" I ask, and the doctor frowns down at a clipboard but I reckon that's his face and not indicative of any prognosis.
"I'm fine," Jonathan says dully, like maybe it hurts to speak and though he doesn't open his eyes he squeezes my hand a little tighter. He's had some stitches and there's blood on his shirt. There's blood on mine too but it's his.
The doctor clears his throat, asks Jonathan a few questions about the date and the prime minister. He's got an answer for both but they're neither of them correct and about five years off, but he knows his name and he knows where he lives so it's possible he's just not up on current events.
"Some confusion is normal," the doctor says and scribbles something down.
"I'm not confused," Jonathan says but after a moment finally opens his eyes. "Am I?"
It's really strange the way he looks at me. It reminds me of my cat Gollum when I have to take him to the vet, the way he looks at me like only I can save him, like he trusts me to fix things.
"I dunno… it's a hard question, ain't it? After all, you don't know what you don't know, you know?" I smile but no one else does. "Do you remember me?" I ask.
He does that weird thing with his mouth again, that weird sharp, toothy smile. It's kind of sweet except it must hurt his head because he winces and pulls at my hand as if he wants to hold his head but doesn't want to let me go.
"You're Samwise," he says. "Samwise the brave."
The doctor is suddenly interested now but not in the way that most people are when they hear my name, not in a humorous 'what, like the hobbit, seriously?' way, more like 'is that actually your name or is he worse than I think?' way.
"Yeah," I say, nodding as much for the doctor as Jonathan, "that is my name but do you remember who I actually am?"
Jonathan nods slowly, pupils huge and dark. "Yes, of course, you're…" he trails off, thinking, brow furrowed in a deeply sad, disappointed expression.
"It's alright," I say, and reach out to touch his shoulder, the one not bloody. "It doesn't matter."
Jonathan looks relieved and pulls me closer, surprisingly strong for a man with a head wound.
How did I get here, I wonder? Standing in a cold Croydon A&E Comforting my former dickhead boss, who, let's be honest, sort of brought this all on himself?
"He'll need looking after," the doctor says suddenly, "for the next fortnight at least. Watch for nausea or dizziness. The confusion is likely temporary but if it persists, bring him back."
"Back?" I say. "Back from where?"
The doctor doesn't shrug but makes a face that might as well have.
"Home?" he suggests, in the tone of a man who hopes he doesn't have to expand on this answer.
"I can't--" I start to say. "I don't--" I try instead, and Jonathan looks up at me like he's waiting for me to have the right answer but try as I might, stammer as I do, I haven't.
"Have you called his emergency contact?" I try, finally landing on a sensible question.
The doctor blinks at me. "Is that not you?"
"Me?" I say, a bit higher pitched that I'm proud of.
The doctor doesn't answer, he just stares at me until I finally twig that this is because he's not got the answer to this.
"I'm not his emergency anything," I blurt, louder than I mean to. A moment later, Jonathan pulls his hand away.
"Hmm," the Doctor says and flips a page. "It says here, 'patient arrived with partner'."
I sort of snort. "The patient absolutely did not."
Jonathan is getting agitated. He sits up and swings his legs off of the bed.
"There's no need, Doctor," he says confidently, no longer the sad cat I imagined. "I can drive my shelf."
But when he goes to stand he lists to the side and both the doctor and I catch him and sit him back down.
"Your shelf?" I ask as the doctor is shining a light in his eyes and he's refusing to open them.
"My shelf…" Jonahan says, the edge of a slur, "I haven't got one on me. We do sell some excellent shelves, and magazine holders."
The doctor looks at me.
"We sell bed and bath wares."
Jonathan looks up sharply at this. I've said the magic words, I reckon.
"You work for me," he says.
"I do."
"Not a… personal assistant?" he asks.
You fuckin' wish, I want to say but don't, and instead go with, "Not exactly. I'm one of your managers."
"Yes, that sounds right," he says, almost wistfully, like he really is just now remembering. "Sheffield branch," he adds after a moment.
"Ay," I say, even as my stomach drops. So much for the movie magic of amnesia and the vague possibility of a firing that never happened.
The doctor, who's been watching this exchange quietly up to that point says, "Hmm," and then hastily scribbles something down like maybe my being from Sheffield is relevant to the head injury.
"We can call the family," the doctor says after a moment, "if that's necessary." He pauses, then looks up at me all dramatic like a doctor on the telly. "Is that necessary?"
There's a long pause in which I wonder why this is my decision but when I look at Jonathan he's gone pale, and not concussion pale, but like, just got caught wanking at a funeral pale.
"No," he says before I can answer, and to everyone's surprise, even his I think, he stands and doesn't sway this time. "No, it's not," he says clearly. "Sam can help me, can't you Sam?"
It's funny because he almost sounds like himself all of a sudden, like the word "family" has triggered some fight or flight response that's sobered him up. It makes me wonder what his family must be like to have such an effect. Cold and distant? Abusive alcoholics? Polo enthusiasts? It says a lot that, even with a dodgy memory, I'm the bloke he turns to at need, at his most vulnerable.
But then, I'm the only one here. Not his family, not his friends, if he has any. Not even anyone from the Croydon branch wanted to give up their weeknight to check on their concussed boss.
And just like that, I have it. A plan. To keep my job and save my team.
"Yes," I say, "of course," and put out my arm in case he needs one to lean on but he declines… that is until he's taken a step and it's clear he's not as steady as he looks. He wobbles and reaches out for the first thing he can hold onto, and, what do you know, It happens to be me.
"C'mon, Jonathan," I say, gentler and kinder than he probably deserves, even if the way he's leaning on me does make me feel a bit bad for him. "Don't worry. I've got you."