INCOMMUNICADO
… She remembered him, but not me?…
…Him, but not me?!…
Anger, indignation, inner turmoil, hate, despair – all these feelings flared in him for a second, strong, violent, made even more frightening by their darkness. This time, however, the anger faded away, unable to feed his self anymore, unable to support him, unable to give him the strength he needed to act.
For the first time in many years, he felt completely defeated. Defeated, battered, worn out… left behind in a way that was too painful for him to bear it any longer. She had forgotten his existence… but she could still be able to remember the Soldier? She had forgotten the one that used to share her days and nights, the one that lived within her, the one that loved her so much that the mere thought of losing her, in a way or another, made him feel like screaming… but she could still remember this… this man?…
Oooh, how he hated him in that moment… for having stolen her heart… for simply existing, for being alive while himself wasn’t, for being… for being able to protect and help her far better than what himself would ever manage to do. For being the one she truly needed, instead of living in the past, with a ghost – no, not even a ghost, but the shadow, the remnants of a ghost. For having secured a place for him in her mind, when she had forgotten all her life…
He did not even try to seize her conscience again. Not only had it become harder, but it was useless now. He was beginning to understand, this understanding making him feel like the most worthless of all men, like a monster, like an abomination that should never have existed. It was a sign. It had a meaning. He didn’t doubt that sooner or later, Omni-Med scientists would be able to heal her completely, that she’d recover, that her amnesia would end… yet the fact that she had been able to forget him was a sign. The sign that he was not the one she needed. And that he had treated her like…
As if you were her, and not yourself…
That was exactly his problem, he realized. He was always thinking of her as Dee… as the woman he had loved, and still did… as Deannah Lane, Deannah living again through Jen, Deannah being his again. But she wasn’t Deannah anymore. She never had been. Since the beginning, she had tried to tell him, to make him understand that she was not her, even though she had been doing her best to be like her in many ways. She just couldn’t, of course, not with a mind as strong as hers. She was herself, Jen, with part of Deannah’s memories. She was herself, Jen, with part of Deannah’s knowledge. She was herself, Jen, having taken on some of Deannah’s quirks, and even on some of his own… yet she wasn’t Deannah.
So, who had he been loving? Jen, or what she was representing to his ghostly eyes? Jen, or the memory he had of Deannah? Jen, or the hope of seeing her, one day, turn into the woman he had known, as if she hadn’t any right to an existence of her own, as if she should simply live with the only aim of being his?
He understood – and the understanding was so painful! – that deep within herself, deep in the unconscious part of her mind to which even him had no access, she was tired of all of this, of being his puppet, in a way, of living for him alone, of being denied the right to love another man if she wanted to. She was trying so hard to please him, and what had he done – what else, if not being mad at her, making her pay by plaguing her nights, disliking all the men she felt attracted to, and hating even more the few ones she could have made her life with? What else, if not being an arse to her, yes, in these last years, when all hopes had slowly begun to fade, when she would have needed his kindness, his love, his comforting presence, rather than his anger and sulking ways of making a hell of her life? “I luv ya, Heiji. Yer always so kind to meh!” little Jen had once said. But he couldn’t even remember the last time he had been that kind to her.
Gomen ne, Jen-chan… he whispered for himself, knowing that she wouldn’t hear him anyways. I… I beg your pardon… I didn’t mean to… I didn’t mean to make you sad… I…
Such a fool… such a filthy, pathetic, pitiful piece of crap he had become! Maybe she simply had decided to forget him in a last attempt of not hating him. Or to be finally able, after all these years, to really live her life, without him flaring his anger at her each time she did something he didn’t appreciate. When had all of this gone wrong? When had he let himself be engulfed in this downward spiral of hate again, bringing her with him in his fall, forcing her to escape in any situation – her work, her dreams, her long wanderings, the nights of partying, the days or running, further and further, the more and more dangerous operations requiring her attention… To escape in letting her own conscience split, sometimes, leaving him deal with the child she had been rather than with the woman she now was… To escape, and at last be able to avoid him a little?
It hadn’t been Cratty’s fault, only his own. The Soldier had just been another lame excuse for him to vent his frustrations at her, his despair and anger of being locked within her conscience like he had been in the last fifteen years, his growing need of a life of his own as well. And this had obliterated what should have really mattered to him; this had obliterated what she needed, she who would so scarcely complain, knowing how he felt, trying her best to soothe him, until… until she simply couldn’t bear it herself anymore, and went falling in the spiral with him, again and again.
Forgive me, Jen… he whispered again, ashamed of what he had done and of what he was. I beg your pardon… I promise… I won’t make it again… I won’t make you cry… Jen, I promise, I swear!… I’ll be kind! I’ll be… I… I’ll try to accept him, I… I’ll try… I…
He felt the harsh cold surrounding him again, just like the first time, not even aware of what he was babbling now, his conscience painful with madness and contained screams. Not like this. Not like this! He didn’t want to disappear. He didn’t want her to forget him. He didn’t want to fade, he didn’t want to lose her! He would have cried for good if he still had physically been able to, his tears as ghostly as himself. Not like this!
Please, Jen. Please.
Remember me.
Remember me!
He let his conscience back up to he point of strict observation, to this point he should maybe never have left in first place. observation of her life, of what was happening all around. How had he only be able to think that he could be more than that, do more than waiting for her to find Cyrus back, or to simply find a solution to their mingled state of being?
Boku no baka… Baka, baka, baka! Such a fool!… Such a piece of crap! he desperately cried, alone in the silence. I…Gomen nasai, Jen… Boku no daisukina Jen-chan… Gomen ne… Forgive me. Forgive me.
He had loved her, too – in a way slightly different than he had for Deannah, true… but loved her all the same, even after – or maybe because of – all these years spent existing within her, entangled within her.
And now that he was realizing it, he was also realizing that he had lost her for good.
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