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Before anything, there was disorientation.
When she felt herself wake up from the Sandman's anaesthesia, she kept her eyes closed. She felt nauseous, overwhelmed. Her mind was chaos personified and for a moment, she didn't know what to do with herself. Everything had come flooding back, all the events, the faces, the people, their choices. She recognized everyone, knew everyone, knew why Minho was at WICKED, why she couldn't remember in the first place.
It was all too much and Evanna thought that if she just kept her eyes closed and blocked out the rest of the world for at least a little bit, it would give her more time to process it all. But it wouldn't, and part of her knew that. Part of her knew she was just stalling the inevitable, avoiding everything she had had the privilege of forgetting.
After the temporary disorientation came the overwhelming sense of guilt. She had forgotten all of them – had forgotten Thomas. He had been right there, staring at her, while she had looked at him like a stranger. As if he had been nothing more than anyone else from the Right Arm. After everything they had been through, to him, they were back to square one and Evan could only imagine how much he was beating himself up for it.
Because of course he was blaming himself for everything. It was how he worked, and it was infuriating. Evan knew now that helping Minho and essentially sacrificing herself had been her own choice. No one had made her do it or pushed her to do so. It was something she had decided to do on her own and even if Thomas had known beforehand, he wouldn't have been able to stop her.
When she wanted to, Evan could be just as stubborn and impulsive as him.
"Here," a voice said from beside her.
Reluctantly, Evanna opened her eyes to see the Sandman holding out a small cup. She looked at him to see if she recognized him now after having regained her memories, but still there was nothing except for the same tug of familiarity. He stared at her for a moment. Then he wiggled the cup a little and she took it.
"What's this?" she asked as she pushed herself upright. The bright lights from the machine had been turned off and it made everything a little more bearable.
"Something a little stronger than tea," he said as he tidied up his tools and the machine.
Evan couldn't bring herself to look at them for too long. She didn't want to know what had happened or how it had happened. She didn't want to see what had prodded her brain – if anything even had. Instead she averted her gaze to the cup and downed the drink in one go.
It tasted vaguely like laundry detergent and burned her throat on the way down. She tried to keep from coughing but to no avail. "What the hell is this stuff?"
