jet_steel (jet_steel) wrote in madisonvalley, @ 2018-02-01 18:24:00 |
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Entry tags: | !closed, !log, [plot] free for all, ~2018 february, ~25 points, ~~adrian ivashkov (jet_steel), ~~sydney sage (mistysteele) |
Who: Adrian and Sydney
What: memory swap
When: last Wednesday (beginning of the plot)
Where: Sydney’s apartment
Warnings: Nah
Status: gdoc, to be completed in comments
Adrian was usually slow to wake up, but today was an exception. He sat bolt upright in bed, immediately knowing something was wrong. He felt strange, like he was in the wrong place. Which...well...he kind of was since he was still in Madison Valley. But it wasn’t any more wrong than yesterday.
No, the alarming thing was that he suddenly remembered the thing everyone had been telling him about for weeks. He remembered being married to Sydney, and loving her. Well, actually, it wasn’t that exactly. The memories were wrong, backward, like he was her looking at him. But he remembered.
He had to go and tell Sydney, right away. He got up and got dressed as quickly as possible, not taking his usual care. Not that it mattered much. His hair was actuallymessy instead of being painstakingly arranged to look messy, but it still looked good on him, he thought as he grabbed his keys and practically ran to Sydney’s apartment.
When he got there he pounded on the door like a madman, desperate to see her. “Sydney! It’s Adrian! I remember everything now!”
***
Sydney was awake. She was always awake early, and was happiest if she was awake and doing something productive by that time. This morning, though, wasn’t her best morning. When she awoke, she’d been overcome by memories of Rose. Not just memories of her, but memories of the shattering pain that her betrayal had caused.
And along with that were the memories of Jill’s near death, and everything that Adrian had gone through after that. She’d always known these things, but she’d never felt them. And when she came to answer the door, her eyes were red with tears.
“Oh,” she said, looking at him. “Adrian. It’s you.”
It was early for him to be up, so it was a bit of a surprise.
***
“Sydney!” He pulled her into his arm and embraced her. “I’m so glad you’re here. I remember everything now. Running from the Alchemists, our wedding in Vegas, Declan, all of it!”
He also remembered being imprisoned and tortured by the Alchemists as if it had happened to him, which was strange. He remembered the helpless and fear and loneliness she’d felt there. He’d often imagined what it must have been like for her, but she never gave him too many details. Now he remembered things he couldn’t possibly know.
But none of that was as important as having her back in his arms. He pressed his lips to hers and kissed her as if his life depended on it.
***
Of course she remembered all of it. It was on her mind every moment of every day, especially now that Adrian was here and didn’t remember her. At first she melted into his arms. After all, this was exactly what she wanted, in every way. She wanted him to remember, to love her...but this...this wasn’t him. This was Madison Valley.
She pulled away, putting her hands on his shoulders, looking into his green eyes.
“The dome is doing this. It’s switched our memories.”
***
Adrian frowned when she pulled away. “What do you mean it’s the dome? How can that happen?” But now that she mentioned it, it was weird that he seemed to have her memories, of things that he couldn’t possibly know and had never had first hand knowledge of.
“This doesn’t make any sense.”
***
“This place doesn’t,” she said, sighing and taking his hand, pulling him inside. “You have all all of my memories?”
It was good at least in that he knew how much she loved him, now. Maybe he’d even thought that Alchemists couldn’t feel that way. But at least now he knew.
***
He followed her inside. He didn’t know what was going on, but he knew that he wanted to be with her.
“Uh...yeah, I guess so. I do kind of remember things from your point of view. And some things I wasn’t present for.” And he definitely felt what she had felt. Besides all the bad things the alchemists had done to her, that also included good things, amazing things, like how she apparently felt about him.
“So what do we do about this? Do we have to do anything? I mean, is this really a problem?” It seemed more like it might be a solution, as far as he was concerned.
***
Sydney sighed heavily, and sat on the couch. As much as she wanted this to be true, as much as she wanted Adrian back, she didn’t want it like this. She didn’t want it to be because Madison Valley was doing its stupid things and messing with their minds.
But...if all it had done was let them have the other’s memories, well, that wasn’t really cheating, was it?
She looked over at him, hopefully.
“Maybe...maybe it isn’t a problem? Maybe we can learn from this.”
***
“Learn from it...yeah, sure learning is good.” He wasn't sure what she hoped to learn, but that was Sydney. Always analyzing things.
He had other things in mind.
“In the meantime, we might as well enjoy it, right?” He sat on the couch next to her, took her in his arms and kissed her.
***
As much as Sydney wanted to lean into that kiss and give her heart back to Adrian where it belonged, she couldn’t. Not yet. Because...well...this wasn’t real. This was Madison Valley’s doing and what was Adrian going to do in a week when this was over.
No. This couldn’t happen.
She stood, pushing him away as gently as possible.
“No, not like that. Not until we figure all of this out.”
***
He raised an eyebrow. “But what if we never figure it out? What if this is the new normal? Would that be so bad?” He really didn’t think it would be.
Why did she always have to find out the answers to everything. Why couldn’t she just relax and enjoy things? It was something he would probably never understand.
“God, I need a drink!”
***
“These things don’t usually last that long,” she said. “Usually it’s a week or two. If a week or two passes and this is still a thing, then we’ll go from there.”
She looked at him, so much sadness in her eyes.
“I love you with all my heart, Adrian, but I want this to be real.”
***
“But that's just it,” he argued, “We don't want it to go back, do we? Shouldn't we be figuring out how to keep things this way? Not just waiting for them to go back to me not really knowing you.”
He wanted to stay with her and he was willing to fight for it. No more passive, useless Adrian for him
***
Sydney just looked at him for a moment. She’d been trying so hard to find a way to give him his memories back, but now that he had them...well...it didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel right at all. And plus, he didn’t have his own memories of the time, he had hers. And while they’d shared a lot, there were things that he’d been through that she didn’t know about. So he was still missing parts of himself.
“What we want is for you to remember what happened to you,” she said. “Not what happened to me.”
***
Well, she did have a point there. Sure, he remembered them being married, but the memories he had weren't really his.
“OK.” He agreed. “OK, you have a point. So what do we do about it?”
Sydney always had a plan, he figured.
***
Sydney did always have a plan. It was why she was already working on her spell to restore his memory. But she hadn’t gotten very far on that yet and she wasn’t going to tell him about it until she had. Just in case it didn’t work, she didn’t want him getting his hopes up.
“Well, talking is good. I have your memories, you have mine. We can talk and give them back. Maybe they’ll trigger something?”
She was afraid it was a rather vain hope, but they could try. And maybe she did have a bit of an ulterior motive, in that talking to Adrian made her happier than just about anything else did.
***
“Sure, alright.” Talking was better than nothing. Much better, in fact. As long as they could spend time together and she wasn’t sending him away, he was happy.
He took her hand and faced her as they sat on the couch. “So what should we talk about first?”
***
“Well, first,” she said, trying to put this in some sort of logical order, because she was Sydney, and that was how Sydney dealt with stress. “First let’s figure out exactly what we’re working with. What’s the last of your new memories? The most recent?”
***
That wasn’t such an easy question to answer. Her memories were all jumbled together with his. It wasn’t like he could just go a file marked “Sydney’s memories” and pull out the most recent one.
The most recent memories he had were actually his. His arrival in Madison Valley and things that had happened since then. Thinking of those memories made him uncomfortable now. God, the way he’d acted, and the women! How could he do that to Sydney? He definitely felt like an ass retrospectively.
“Let’s see…” he said, trying to sift through the things that were different now, or from her perspective. “I remember getting married in Vegas, running from the alchemists, Lissa giving us sanctuary at the Moroi court, and then us stupidly leaving again to go save Jill.”
***