"I'm going to take care of you."
It's a strange voice. Like as if a child was speaking. Is Harry dreaming? He can't seem to open his eyes. Perhaps this is a lucid dream? He read an article about it the other day, that must've influenced his brain in some way.
"I know you will, honey, but we need to let daddy rest, yeah? Go to granny and she'll give you a snack."
This voice is definitely adult. But what the fuck is that supposed to mean? The tone of the voice is vaguely familiar but Harry can't place it. If only he could wake up. He feels fuzzy, like his entire body was made out of TV static. He tries to open his eyes. It's not hard, he's done it a billion times before.
"Okay, dad. But what if daddy wakes up when I'm gone?"
The child again. Harry slowly feels more awake. God, he hopes he's not actually talking in his sleep. That'd be embarrassing.
"Don't worry about that, babe. I'll come and get you if he does, yeah? Now be a good girl and go say hi to your gran."
This was the somewhat familiar voice once more. Who does it remind him of?
Okay, fuck lucid dreaming. Harry's not a fan at all. Why do people want these? It's so strange. He needs to wake up, seriously.
But it's so hard. Somehow, Harry's eyelids feel like they're made out of burn-out stars and weigh more than half of the explored universe. He tries and tries and tries to no avail. His body almost feels detached from him. He thinks he moved a few fingers. Hopefully.
"Haz?"
Lucid dreams, go to hell. Will there be a demon at the foot of his bed when he opens his eyes?
Harry feels superhuman when his eyelids finally cooperate and begin to rise up, letting light onto his sensitive eyes. Everything's too fucking bright. He must've forgotten to draw the curtains at night. When his eyes adjust, Harry finally looks out again and holy fucking shit.
This is not his bedroom. This is a hospital.
"Am I-" Harry coughs, his throat dry as a bloody desert. "Am I sleeping?"
"Haz?" there's the familiar voice again. Harry tries to move his head to where the voice is coming from but the second he does, his entire body breaks out in pain. He whimpers, closing his eyes and the voice speaks again, "Babe, what's wrong? What hurts? I'm gonna call the doctor, okay? You're alright, babe, just open your eyes. Talk to me, please."
Harry moves through the pain and opens his eyes again, this time the motion much easier. And when he looks out into the room again, he sees a dark-haired man sitting in a chair by Harry's bed. He's holding his hand and wait, Harry knows him. He's pretty sure he does.
"Where's my mum?" Harry asks, his voice weak. His head is starting to throb with the mother of all headaches.
"She's on her way," the man replies. His name still eludes Harry. "She was in Greece with her girlfriends and she couldn't get a flight back yesterday. But she should be here in a couple of hours."
Harry groans softly as a particularly nasty bound of pain hits him. "Wait," he breathes out. "You're Zayn, right? Niall's mate?"
Zayn's entire face drops. "Technically. Wait, what day do you think it is today?"
"Um," Harry thinks, rubbing his temple mindlessly. "Friday?"
"I mean year," Zayn clarifies, the grave expression still on his face.
"Fucking hell," Harry sighs. "May 2015? The... 29th? I submitted my thesis on Monday and that was the 25th."
"God," Zayn sighs and leans back in the flimsy plastic chair. He covers his face with his hands. Harry frowns at him, "What's going on? Have I been in a coma for a while? Because that would've bloody sucked. Have I missed graduation?"
"Daddy!" the same little voice from when Harry thought he was dreaming screams and before he can ever properly look at the child, Harry has a little girl catapulting herself onto his bed. He can't do much as he's in utter shock, the girl clinging to him and going on about something along the lines of: "You're finally awake daddy!" and Harry can't breathe.
"Sadie, please leave daddy alone," Zayn says as he lifts the little girl off from Harry's bed. She trashes for a bit before he sits her on his hip, their heads close together as he talks to her, "Daddy isn't feeling well, baby. You need to be a big girl for him and be with granny until daddy's better. Can you do that for daddy, please?"
The girl, Sadie, apparently, looks up at Zayn with her huge green eyes, a pout on her lips before she nods and asks to be put down on the floor. Zayn complies after kissing her forehead and Sadie leaves again, but not before taking one final look behind at the door.
Harry breathes in deeply as if he had just come out from being underwater for a century. "What the fuck is going on?" he asks, his heart drumming up a marching band in his chest. "Why does that child think I'm her father?"
"Harry," Zayn says quietly, sitting on the side of Harry's bed. "You must have retrograde amnesia. The doctors said it was a possibility after they did a scan. You were hit quite badly in the head. Someone should be coming in a moment, I've no clue what's taking so long. They'll explain everything but just to give you an idea, you were in a pretty serious car accident. It's literally a miracle you have no broken bones. You've loads of bruises, quite a few cuts from the glass, some had to be stitched up. And obviously a really bad concussion. That little girl who was just here is Sadie and you are her father. She also has a little brother called Noah. And I'm not Niall's mate, I'm your husband. "
Harry laughs. That's his immediate reaction to this. Because there's no fucking way. No, this can't be right. He could never forget his two children. That's impossible. His brain could've been scrambled egg but Harry knows if he actually had kids, he wouldn't forget them no matter what.
"Why are you laughing?" Zayn frowns. "This isn't funny, Harry."
"Oh, no," Harry shakes his head. "This is hilarious. So is the prank over now? Where's Niall with a camera or something? C'mon, I don't like this. Was I really in an accident? And then you lads decided to trick me?"
Zayn looks mortified. "Why would I ever joke about you forgetting our family? What the fuck, Harry?"
"Whatever," Harry rolls his eyes. His head spins right after he does that. "Where's Xander?"
Zayn's eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. "Xander?"
"Yes," Harry nods softly, mindful of his sore head after the unpleasant reminder. "My boyfriend, Xander. Where is he?"
Now Zayn's the one to chuckle but there isn't an ounce of humour in it. "Xander moved back to Florida in June 2015. You haven't talked to him since."
Harry's breath catches in his throat. "Xander would never leave me."
"He sure fucking did," Zayn replies calmly, crossing his arms in front of his chest. "Look at your left ring finger, please."
Harry nearly scoffs but he does it nevertheless. Upon lifting his left arm he sees an IV stuck into him, as well as several large plasters and one bandage. There are bruises littered around his skin so fine, he obviously did get into an accident. When he looks at his ring finger, he doesn't see anything out of the ordinary, except for the fact that all his nails are painted a pale orange colour but Lou sometimes painted his nails when she was bored so it's nothing too crazy.
And then he sees it, on the inside of his fingers. A tattoo, one that obviously isn't new given that ink on fingers deteriorates faster than anywhere else. It's simple - Z . III MMXVI - but it says more than enough. Why else would he have Zayn's initial along with the date of March 2016 tattooed on his ring finger?
Upon closer examination, Harry notices a paler ring of skin on his finger, as if he had a ring sitting there at all times, preventing the sun from tanning that skin. When he moves his eyes along his arm, he sees new tattoos that he doesn't remember getting, doesn't remember having. Harry's stomach drops down into the pits of hell when he sees two names tattooed in cursive on his left arm. One says Sadie and the other one Noah.
Harry feels short of breath, with tears prickling his eyes because he can't fucking remember any of this when presumably his doctor comes in. It's a fairly young, tall blonde woman, who looks a little bit like she ran there.
"God, I'm so sorry for coming so late," she breathes out as she pulls out Harry's file from the clipboard at the foot of Harry's bed. "They brought it an old lady who fell and I had to examine her first so she could be taken to get a scan. Anyway, it's good to see you awake, Harry," she speaks casually, almost as if they were friends, all without lifting her eyes from the file. "Your husband was worried sick about you. So were your kids, sweet little things. How are you feeling?"
Harry blinks at her a few times. "I can't remember the last... however many years of my life so that's fun."
"Oh no," the doctor's shoulders drop. She looks over at Zayn, "I'm so sorry, I was hoping he wouldn't end up with amnesia but with the concussion he had..." she shakes her head quickly and shifts her attention back to Harry. "What is the last thing you remember?"
"I, uh," Harry takes in a deep breath. "I thought it was the week when I had submitted my thesis. May 2015. The last thing I can remember is... I was supposed to have lunch with my boyfriend Xander. Ex-boyfriend, I guess."
Zayn's looking down at the floor. Harry can't imagine what must be going through his head. It's easier to try and guess than to sort out his own feelings because as far as Harry's concerned, he knows Zayn only as Niall's outrageously attractive friend who always laughed at Harry's stupid jokes and sometimes hung out in the library with him, not as his husband and someone he has two kids with. Shit, Harry has kids. He has actual children. Yet he doesn't know a single thing about this life that simply dissipated from his memory and consciousness.
Harry just wants his mum to be here. And Xander but that's impossible it seems since they haven't talked in... whatever years.
"Wait, what year is it now?" Harry asks finally.
"It's 2022," the doctor replies. "July 20th 2022."
Fuck.
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Okay, so the first chapter is here! What do you guys think? PLEASE leave some feedback so I know to post more ❤️
This started as a prompt for @zarryandmetonight so I hope you like it 😅
Thank you all for reading ❤️