Who: Amelia and Ty, then Grady When: midday-ish, Thursday, May 10th Where: Witcham Road, car, Mercy Hospital Status: complete
It was the birds that woke him up. The incessant twittering and chirping that finally sank its way into his brain and started to bring his consciousness around. Opening his eyes hurt for the first few seconds as his pupils adjusted to more sunlight than they’d been exposed to in ... well, ever? Ty wasn’t sure. Just that it was bright and loud, and the air felt thin and clean in his nostrils. Ty squinted up at the long lines of trees surrounding him, reaching for the skies. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead, filtering the sunlight into a spread of twinkling emeralds above him. He laid still for a long time, taking stock of his body. He was actually rather comfortable lying on the forest floor, the dried leaves under him rustling softly every time he moved. Nothing on him hurt, but he could tell he was tired. He just couldn’t remember from what.
Eventually Ty sat up and looked around himself. He was in the woods, but not deep -- he could see the dip of a ditch and a road beyond it through the trees on his left. As he watched, a white truck sped by. Where was he? He didn’t know. Why was everything so bright? He didn’t know that either, nor did he know why that mattered at all. He just knew it wasn’t what he was used to. It seemed easy not to question it too much though, and for a while Ty just enjoyed sitting and breathing. He turned his face up to the warm sunbeams shining down and soaked them in.
The gnawing pit of hunger in his stomach was what really got him moving. Ty needed to find some food. He wasn’t sure how to go about doing that, but finding it in the woods was less likely, he was pretty sure, so he got up. He walked up onto the side of the road and looked both ways. The truck had been heading right, so that was the way he turned to go, stretching his upper back and shoulders a bit as he started to walk.
Driving down Witcham Road was always a little strange for Amelia. She knew now that her brother had gone missing somewhere just off this road and so, despite all logic, she always found herself scanning the treeline when she drove out of town, as if he might just stumble out of the woods right as she was passing by. She left town more often these days, working for the police meant that sometimes she was the one to drive to the nearest towns for pickup or delivery and on occasion that meant evidence which made her feel all sorts of important and a little jittery. It was all small town stuff of course, nothing big in the grand scheme of things, but it was still nice to have that sort of purpose now, to be helpful.
She was on her way to Brighton to pick something up for a case when she spotted the man walking along the road and while it certainly wasn't Jasper he still caught her attention in a big way even before he turned around to try to hitch a ride. He didn't look like he was well equipped to be walking out there by himself, there was no car nearby, he looked tired and he looked filthy but despite the beard and the filth, Amelia thought she knew him. It wasn't smart for a young woman to stop for a grown man but Amelia wasn't just any young woman and this wasn't just any raggedy ass man. She stopped the car too suddenly, relieved it wasn't still slippery out anymore, her heart pounding as she watched him in the rear view mirror. There was no doubt in her mind now; this was Deputy Ty Solomon. He had found her all those months ago at Sweetbriar Bridge and while she didn't know much about him back then, she did now. He'd gone missing when her brother did, there were pictures of him at the station along with everyone else who was gone. This was him. A small part of her mind tried to say she wasn't sure but she was and she waited as he walked closer, mouth agape as she tried to work through her shock. Finally she opened her door and got out, looking at him over the roof of the cruiser. "Solomon?"
When Ty heard another vehicle approaching, he stuck his thumb out. He had a moment of being oddly amused that he knew what that meant without really knowing how he knew, then he was surprised when the car actually pulled over ahead of him. It was a police cruiser, and he wondered vaguely if he ought to worry about that -- was he a criminal? On the run from something? He’d gathered by now that he was incredibly filthy and scruffy, so maybe he was homeless? He’d woken up in the woods after all. Ty wasn’t feeling much distress about these unanswered questions, not yet. It was more just a mild curiosity. Was that shock? He didn’t know. He walked toward the car but stopped when he saw a young lady get out of the driver’s side. Ty frowned vaguely when she spoke first, the word she said not ringing any bells in his scrambled brain. “What?” he asked, obviously clueless as to what she meant. Nothing about her was familiar, and it was so fucking bright out here.
She knew him, she absolutely knew him even if his beard was scruffy and his hair was a tangled long mess. The voice was right, the eyes, the way he carried himself and it made her want to run into those woods to see if Jasper was back too. "Solomon," she repeated and how messed up was he if he didn't recognize his own name. "Ty Solomon. Deputy?" Maybe she was low key racist or something, there weren't that many black people in town and maybe this guy just looked a lot like Ty but no, she was so sure. But what if you're wrong. "Are you okay?" she asked hesitantly and looking at him the answer was obviously no but she still felt the urge to ask.
Ty Solomon Deputy. But Deputy was a title, so Deputy Ty Solomon? He frowned deeper and struggled to figure out if those names meant anything to him. He felt like they should ... but it was a slippery thing, like trying to hold onto a dream. Ty absently lifted one hand to scratch in the side of his beard as he took another couple of steps closer to the girl. Woman, he supposed, since she was driving a police car and everything. She wasn’t in a uniform though, so he wasn’t sure what to make of that. He wasn’t sure what to make of anything, honestly. “You know me?” he asked slowly, sounding unsure. Was that even possible? Ty felt like he was in the wrong place, like he’d slipped into somewhere else, somewhere with clean air and birds and it didn’t seem right, even if he was struggling to recall why not. The more he groped in his mind for something solid to remember, the harder it seemed to grab hold of anything.
"Yeah," Amelia replied and those small doubtful voices got quiet. This was Ty, he was disoriented but he was back. Amelia knew damn well that getting back from wherever he'd been could have messed him up, her own return hadn't exactly been unproblematic. "Do you know where you're going?" she asked after shutting down all the other thousands of questions she wanted to blast him with, he didn't look like he was in any shape to answer them. "You look like you need help. I can help you. My name is Amelia, you helped me once too." There was always a chance that he was still the way Jasper had been when he disappeared, that he'd get in the car and Amelia would get tired - or worse - but she couldn't leave him out here. Maybe she should be calling the station but there was a nagging little fear that it would scare him off if more people showed up, or she couldn't get him to wait there with her.
Ty felt like he ought to be relieved to find someone who knew him, but there was something in him that didn’t trust it. Like maybe it was too good to be true, too easy. Not only did she know him, she wanted to help, because he’d helped her first. Ty got a strange head rush as he glanced around them. The sun was so beautiful, everything felt so nice except his itchy skin ... had he died? Was he in heaven now, about to be escorted around by an angel in a cop car? It didn’t take him long to decide that he was on board if that was the case. Being possibly dead felt like a big relief, really. Maybe all the jumbled pieces of fear in his head would stay in the past now. Ty shook his head as he looked down the road in the direction he’d been walking. “I just ... saw a truck and went that same way,” he answered her question. “Do ... do you have any food on you? I’m really hungry,” he admitted. If she wanted to help and she had something on her to eat, he felt like he would be eternally grateful.
Amelia nodded. "I have some protein bars and some water," she told him. "Get in, I'll drive you into town and we'll figure something out. Do you remember anything?" What she really wanted to ask was if he was alone, if there were more people in the woods but she wanted to get him in the car first, make sure he wasn't unstable. "Anyone?" He obviously didn't know his own name, he hadn't mentioned Point Pleasant or even 'home' and he looked utterly lost, like he barely understood where he was. Head trauma, maybe. Or interdimensional travel trauma more likely though no doctor would diagnose him with that.
Protein bars and water sounded like a goddamn feast to Ty, and he eagerly started for the passenger side of the cop car. Maybe it was stupid of him to trust her so immediately, but the pain in his stomach didn’t give him a whole lot of choice. Plus she looked really young and she was a girl, so that meant he was stronger than her, right? Only if he had to be. Ty didn’t answer her questions until he’d climbed into the car and she had too, then shook his head. “No, not ... not much,” he said. “Just a place that wasn’t ... like this.” He made a vague gesture at the world around them, which felt so familiar and so foreign at the same time.
It wasn't until Amelia saw another car coming that she had the good sense to put on the turn on the turn-light but she was in no rush to start driving. First she found the food for Ty, there was a chocolate bar too but she'd been saving that for later and Ty obviously needed something more substantial than sugar. She handed it over and glanced at the radio. Should she be calling this in? Would that freak him out? "We're on Witcham Road," she told him. "Right outside of Point Pleasant." God he smelled bad, like he'd rolled around in dirt but not any kind of dirt she recognized. It smelled like decay, and it was near black against his already dark skin. "Can I bring you to the hospital?" she asked, keeping her voice steady but soft. "I think you might need some help if you can't remember anything."
Ty snatched at the protein bar as soon as Amelia held it out and ripped into it. He started wolfing it down, getting away with the bare minimum of chewing. He felt like he hadn’t eaten in days, weeks even. But that didn’t seem possible. None of this really seemed possible though, so that was just what it was. None of the place names the girl listed off meant anything to him, and the word ‘hospital’ brought up a mental image of a big rotting building with room for lots of dangerous creatures to hide. Ty had some jumbled, disconnected memories of going into that building to try and ... find something. Medicine? Supplies? He couldn’t remember. His jaw already getting tired from chewing the protein bar, he looked over at her, his expression unsure. “Are there monsters there?” he asked in a low tone.
Amelia's stomach sank at that question and she thought of her brother stuck in a place with monsters in it and felt her tiny sliver of hope start to crumble. She steeled herself against it. She'd been in a place with monsters in it too and she'd survived. "Not today," she told him honestly because saying no felt like a lie and she wasn't a fan of lying about such things. What if she said no and then the fog came back, thick and full of man-eating creatures. There were monsters in this dimension too, they just weren't as prominent as they had been on the other side. "Was there anyone out here in the woods with you?" she asked and promised herself she wouldn't break down over Jasper until she had Ty safe with someone else.
Ty wasn’t sure how she knew that, unless she’d been to the hospital already today. Were there monsters there other days? He decided not to ask, and just take his chances. He hadn’t seen anything around them yet, nothing had come for him in the woods, this just seemed like a different sort of place. He still wasn’t sure he wasn’t already dead. And god, he was so tired, and so dirty. As long as they got him hydrated and let him get clean, he didn’t really care where he was. “No,” Ty answered Amelia’s question, shaking his head a bit. “Just me. There ... were others ...” His brow furrowed in concentration, a bit of protein bar tucked in one cheek. “But I don’t know where they are now.”
The urge to stay right there and go search the woods was overwhelming and Amelia scanned the treeline again, hope warring with despair inside of her. For all she knew Ty could be sick, maybe he shouldn't even be eating, the best thing to do was to get him to a doctor, some professional who could look him over and make sure he was okay. It still hurt to leave this place but she'd come back, she promised herself that. Maybe they could organize another search in the woods. "We'll find them," she told him as she changed the turn light again and checked for traffic, then turned the car onto the other lane and started for town. "Your name is Ty, I think it's short for Tyrone," she said, glancing over at him. Just looking at him made her want to take a shower herself, even if he hadn't so much as touched her since getting in the car. "You're a deputy for the Point Pleasant Sheriff Department."
The motion of the car made his stomach lurch a bit, just as something he wasn’t used to anymore, but the feeling passed quickly. He finished off the protein bar and had to resist the urge to ask for another one. Amelia had said she had water, but he only saw one bottle in the cupholder. Ty pointed to it and gave her a glance that was almost shy. “Can I ...?” Once she gave the go ahead, he took it and drank it down in three or four long gulps. A bit of nausea passed through him, but it was easy enough to ignore. With fuel in him, his brain was already starting to work better, he thought. The name Tyrone triggered an echoing memory of a woman -- a woman much older than Amelia -- yelling it across a room, but didn’t give him much more than that. “Deputy Ty ... what did you say? S-something? Simpson?” he asked.
"Solomon," Amelia said and she couldn't imagine how harrowing it must be, not remembering who he was. At least she'd never lost her identity, even if her life had been ripped from her, she'd always remembered who she was and where she came from. It made this otherwise tall man seem small in a way, lost and hungry as he was. "Do you remember Grady Barrett?" she asked. "He's the sheriff, he'll be happy to hear you're okay." She didn't really know anything about Ty's personal life and maybe it was for the best not to probe at that anyway, there was no telling what kind of hurt was buried in Ty's amnesia, especially considering what Jasper had been like when he disappeared. Amelia hadn't heard of Ty actually killing anyone or anything like that but that didn't mean it hadn't happened.
Deputy Ty Solomon. It was a strong name, and Ty felt like the last part was kind of Biblical-sounding, even though he couldn’t remember the exact reference. It didn’t really matter right then anyway. He repeated it silently to himself a few times, wanting to memorize it while hoping at the same time it would ring familiar with repetition. It didn’t, not really. He glanced over at Amelia when she spoke again and shook his head slowly. “No, don’t remember him,” he murmured with some regret. If he was the sheriff that probably meant he’d been Ty’s boss, right? Maybe that meant he would know who Ty’s family was, or friends if he’d had any. He gnawed at his bottom lip for a moment, then looked over at the girl again. “Are you a cop too?” he asked. She was in a cop car, after all, so that made sense, right?
It was a fair assumption to make given the cruiser but that was just the perks of working for a small town police department and Amelia smiled and shook her head. "Just a sort of office staff personal assistant dispatch kind of job," she told him and realized she was glancing over at him far more than she really needed to do, as if some part of her was still terrified he'd stop being calm and reasonable and went crazy - or worse. If he'd been stuck in some Other Place like she had, the rules were different there and he might still be infected like Jasper had been, just differently. Her mind gave her a brief preview of what that could mean - Ty Solomon bursting into a pile of black tentacles right there on the seat - and she smothered a cringe and gripped the steering wheel a bit tighter to ground herself. He was just human, a lost and filthy human who needed help. "I might end up becoming a cop," she said, just to tell him something. "If I keep liking it there I might take the education I need to be a real dispatch or a deputy, who knows, right?"
Oblivious to how dangerous he possibly was, Ty sat and wondered if he’d liked being a cop, if he was a good cop or a bad one, if he’d been fair or a shithead. It felt so incredibly strange to not know himself. What if he found out he didn’t like who he was? Could he be somebody else? What would his friends and family think about his return, assuming he had some. “You should do it if you want to do it,” he said, looking over at Amelia again. He was sure she wasn’t really asking him for his opinion, just trying to avoid an uncomfortable silence, so he didn’t feel bad changing the subject back to himself. “You said I helped you before ... what happened?” he asked, thinking that might give him an insight into his character.
Amelia didn't reply right away, pursing her lips to the side as she tried to think of a good way to tell him what had gone down all those months ago. "This, pretty much," she ended up saying. "I was lost somewhere else and I made it back. You found me by Sweetbriar Bridge and you brought me to the hospital. Let me keep your jacket while I was there." Was that detail important? Probably not but it stayed with her, the first bit of comfort she'd had in a long time was that warm car and Ty's jacket. "I remembered everything though, maybe you will too." Maybe it was better if he didn't, maybe the place he had been in was even worse than where she had been and remembering would just hurt too much. He didn't look a lot older but it was hard to tell with all the dirt.
He’d been a police officer, so taking care of people came with the territory, but the bit about the jacket was important to him. That showed some care that went beyond the badge. He didn’t know where Sweetbriar Bridge was, but that didn’t matter. What really piqued his interest was the fact that Amelia was ‘lost somewhere else’ too, and Ty turned his body toward her some more, his gaze sharpening up some. “Where were you?” he asked, some eagerness in his tone. “What do you remember about it? Was there-- was there fog? Lots of fog? And, and this black kinda goopy shit everywhere?” The fact that there was more than one reality was really sinking in for him, it wasn’t exactly deniable anymore. Unless this was some crazy fever dream as he died in the fog or something, Ty was somewhere else, and apparently he’d originally come from here, not over there.
Amelia shook her head and she was disappointed Jasper hadn't gone to the same place as she had, if he had he could have found his way home far faster than she had. But she'd already known that, he'd gone to the place where the fog and the monsters came from. "No, there were just empty streets and empty houses and shadow people," she replied and the hope Jasper might have survived the fog and the monsters was sparking up in her chest making her fearful that she'd just be disappointed and end up right at the start of the whole grieving process again. There had been black goop though, every time she turned a faucet or pumped gas, that's what came out first. Maybe it was some sort of interdimensional travel mechanic or something. "We didn't go to the same place," she told him. "But we both made it back. You're going to be okay."
Ty was a bit disappointed that it didn’t sound like the same place. The streets and houses had been empty, but he could’ve done without the huge monsters he could barely remember and all the fog that would surely haunt his dreams for the rest of his life. He sat back again and nodded. Yes, he’d made it back. Somehow. Ty had just woken up there, so he couldn’t take credit for it, but he was still grateful. Already this place seemed a lot more peaceful and safe, and he could actually see more than a few yards in front of him, and that felt like a big change. And Amelia had said there were no monsters at the hospital, so he would be safe to go there. “I hope so,” he murmured, glancing out the window and then back to Amelia. “Was it hard coming back? Do you feel okay now?”
Amelia didn't really want to talk about the ordeal she'd gone through to get back, the risk she'd taken and the fact she'd been ready to die. Coming home had been wonderful and hard at the same time for very different reasons. "Time went by differently there so I'm a lot older than when I went missing," she told him. "I had to change my name. You're the same though," she hurriedly tacked that on, not wanting him to start panicking about time or anything like that. "You won't have to worry about that. Just... some of the people at the hospital won't know me as Amelia, they'll know me as Lyra so if you need to ask for me for some reason..."
“Oh wow,” Ty murmured, looking a little surprised. He didn’t remember any of that, he wondered if he’d even known about the difference, or if he’d just picked up a lost girl in the woods. The reassurance was good though, knowing that he’d only been gone for a few months instead of years on either side. He was pretty sure he hadn’t been stuck there that long, at least. It was hard to recall at the moment, all his memories of it were so scattered. “I’ll call you Lyra then,” he said, giving a little nod. She was being really nice to him, he didn’t want to blow her cover. “Do you know if I have ... family here? I know the sheriff will probably know ...”
"I don't know them," Amelia replied a bit regretfully but again, maybe that was a good thing. She could leave this all to Grady to sort out, Grady and the doctors. "The sheriff will know, I'll call him from the hospital if you want, we can figure this all out there." Thankfully they weren't far out of town and she wondered if he'd recognize any of it as they approached it. He'd grown up here as far as she knew. She did know Ty had a boyfriend but he'd left shortly after Ty went missing and bringing that up now was more likely to do harm than good so she zipped it. "I'm really glad I found you," she said instead. "It's good to see you again."
Ty was watching the world glide by out the car window, but none of it was familiar to him. It looked like a very small town, nestled in the woods, kind of cozy and pretty as they drove further into it. He was kind of reassured that they were going to talk to a sheriff, especially one he’d worked for before. Ty got the sense that kind of man wouldn’t bullshit him, and he felt like he needed that a lot right then. He wanted straightforward answers. Amelia’s words caught him a bit by surprise, and he quirked a little smile as he glanced over again. “I’m glad you found me too, ‘specially since I was going the wrong way,” Ty said, and gave a soft chuckle. “I hope I remember you eventually so I can say the same. But for now it’s good to meet you.”
Amelia smiled at that. It was good to hear him laugh, it made her think about Jasper and how maybe he was going to be okay, that he could return and smile again. The thought made her feel a little choked up and she breathed through it and tried to focus on Ty, on the here and now. "We didn't know each other well," she told him. "You know my name, you know we've been through a similar thing. We're on pretty even ground already." Entering town was both a relief and a disappointment since she'd been scanning the treeline near constantly for Jasper as she drove and now it was over. That didn't mean he couldn't be there, wandering the street in search of something familiar and Amelia kept focusing on every person they passed, her stomach in knots. "Someone would have stopped for you even if I hadn't," she told him. "I think a lot of people know you here." She wasn't so sure but she felt like he needed that comforting thought, that he wouldn't still be wandering in the wrong direction if she hadn't been there. "It's a small town, people have a hard time minding their own business."
He liked to think that someone else would’ve stopped, but he was exceedingly filthy and scruffy and just a mess. Ty was glad he’d gotten lucky and Amelia had happened by. He couldn’t quite remember why, but he got the sense it wasn’t smart to wander around as a rough-looking black man. Maybe the small-townness of this place offset that, but he didn’t know that for sure. “I’m sure this’ll get around fast then,” he murmured, watching the town slide by them with interest. It looked small and quaint and a little touristy, just a lovely place on the shoreline. Did he really live here? Ty wondered how much family and friends were going to rush to the hospital once they heard to crowd around and confuse him, and his stomach clenched with premature anxiety. His gaze slid back to Amelia. “You’ll keep it quiet, right?”
"I'll only talk to Grady," Amelia said. "I think he can help you more than I can but he's good at keeping things under wrap. He kept my secret until I was ready to go home." She understood better than most the urge to keep it quiet, it was overwhelming to come back especially since he didn't remember anything and that part just made it all so much worse. Having strangers telling him he knew them, not knowing who to trust. Her heart went out to him so making that promise was easy. "You kept my secret, I'll keep yours." She glanced over at him again and gave him a pained little smile. "You're okay with me calling Grady, right? I promise you can trust him."
Maybe it should’ve had the opposite effect, but the fact that Amelia was claiming to have been through the same situation made Ty trust her more. His own position was strange enough, he didn’t think she would have reason to make something like that up on the spot. She seemed so sincere too. “Yeah, I’m okay with that,” Ty murmured, glancing over at her again. “If he was my boss, I’m sure he’ll like, be able to answer a lot of questions.” He didn’t want to suddenly be surrounded by a ton of people claiming to know him, he wanted to hear about what he might be facing first. From someone who wouldn’t be overly emotionally invested in any of it. Ty paused, then added, “I really appreciate this. Thank you.”
Amelia wished she knew more about him. She was pretty sure that if there had been deaths associated with him she would have heard of it by now but people kept secrets so who really knew. In any case she had kind of hoped that seeing familiar buildings might jog his memory but he seemed every bit as lost as before as they made their way past Seaview and toward Mercy. "Don't mention it," she told him softly at his show of gratitude. It really wasn't any skin off her back to drive him back into town and share her water and protein bars, a small price to pay for the surge of hope rushing through her that she might see her brother again. It was mixed with terror of course, of grief she'd done her very best of burying but hope was a precious gift. Once she'd parked outside the hospital and turned off the engine, she took a moment to grab her phone and look up a picture of Jasper. It was probably futile but she had to know. "Does this face look at all familiar to you?" she asked, showing it to Ty.
He peered out the window at the hospital, hoping it would trigger some sort of memory -- if he’d been a cop, surely he’d been to the hospital many times in the line of duty. To Ty it looked kind of generic, like something he’d seen on TV a dozen times, but it wasn’t familiar really. It was such a weird feeling to know what things were without really knowing how he knew. Ty looked over as Amelia turned her phone screen toward him and he looked at the photo. It didn’t take long for recognition to hit him and he raised his eyebrows as his gaze came back up to her. “Yeah, I know that kid,” he said, his surprise evident. “He was there, over there with us. You know him?” Ty didn’t have a ton of detailed memories about the face she was showing him, but he could recall enough to know they’d been trapped together in that place.
"Yes," Amelia said, holding back on the emotions threatening to overwhelm her. He had enough to deal with without her having a meltdown right there and then. Thankfully she was good at that compartmentalization, she'd learned early on to cry later if she needed it. "Do you know if he's still alive?" she asked as neutrally as she was able and she knew she was not going to be able to make this trip to Brighton today, she'd need to go look around the wooded area where she found Ty just in case Jasper or any of the others had come through there too. Ideally Grady would get together a search party but that wasn't going to be easy if they weren't spreading the news that Ty was back.
Amelia may have been holding back admirably well, but Ty knew she wouldn’t have asked about someone she didn’t care about, or had a picture of him in her phone. That in mind, he tried to give the question the level of thought it deserved. Ty’s eyes dropped back down to the photo and his brow furrowed with thought. He didn’t remember a lot of deaths happening around him over there, strangely enough. It had seemed like such a dangerous place. “I can’t ... say for sure,” he said, a note of warning in his tone as he met Amelia’s eyes again. “A lot of it’s just all mixed up, but ... every memory I have of him, he was alive. And I know I saw him not too long ago.” He was pretty sure, anyway, it was hard to put things in order. Ty didn’t want to give her false hope, but he didn’t want to lie to her either. She’d been so kind to him.
Maybe she should be asking about the others too, but she honestly didn't give a shit about any of them. It was just Jasper she wanted back and for her family's sake she hoped her grandfather wouldn't come back with him. His answer was honest but how could she not feel hopeful after he said that. If Jasper had survived over there for a long time, there was hope he was still alive and since Ty didn't seem to be making her tired and he wasn't acting crazy, there was hope that Jasper was okay in that way too. She put her phone away again and gave Ty a little smile. "Thank you," she said quietly. "Are you ready to go in there? Or do you want me to call Grady first so he can go in with you? Throw some sheriffy weight around?"
Ty didn’t know who the guy was to Amelia, but he was glad to give her even just a bit of cautious optimism. He just hoped that everyone else made it back like he had. Or even better than he had, since he still didn’t even really know who he was. He glanced back out the front windshield at the hospital, then nodded his head a bit. “Yeah, think I’m ready,” he said. “I can get it all started with the doctors at least. They can at least check me out and maybe they’ll have a shower available or something.” Grady would show up when he showed up, Ty didn’t want to make Amelia wait around for him. He reached for the door handle but then hesitated, looking at her again. “I know you gotta stay kinda undercover, but are you coming for now?”
"Not that undercover," Amelia said with a reassuring smile. "Just call me Lyra in there." She got out of the car then, not about to let him wander in there on his own with no ID and no clue. It would help that she worked for the police and knew some of the doctors and nurses and she at least remembered now how hospitals worked. Ty seemed to know some random things like that but she wasn't willing to take the chance that wouldn't just wander in there and then wander off again in some fit of anxiety. She wouldn't have gotten much done if he hadn't stayed with her after he found her so it felt only right to do right by him in return. She kind of wished she'd called Grady already; he no doubt could have waved his badge and gotten Ty in there without having to fill out forms but those were all supposed to be confidential. "I'll need to give them your name," she told Ty before they reached the doors. "But they'll keep it a secret until you're ready."
Lyra, right. Ty nodded that he understood before he got out and joined her. Nerves were starting to flutter in his stomach, and his palms felt a little sweaty underneath all the dirt. “Okay,” he murmured, squaring his shoulders as the doors slid open in front of him. Ty knew that once he stepped inside things would probably get overwhelming and confusing, and part of him wanted to just go back and sit in the car. But he couldn’t stop things from moving forward, and he wanted to find out who he really was.
Grady had been pretty sure that Amelia was pranking him when she called to tell him she picked up Ty Solomon off of Witcham Road. At least for the few first seconds of trying to digest the information. And then his mind had sort of numbed out as he listened to her speak, well aware that Amelia wouldn't joke about finding any of the Witcham Road disappearances, especially since her brother had been one of them. After confirming that Ty had been the only one she had found, Grady hung up the phone and grabbed his keys to head over to the hospital. It didn't escape his notice that Ty had been the one to find Amelia when she had returned from whatever hellish dimension she had disappeared to. Something about things coming full circle fluttered through his thoughts as he climbed into his patrol car.
When he arrived at the hospital, the nurse at the front directed him to where they were checking on Ty. He moved with brisk, purposeful steps but remained cautious. There was always the possibility that Amelia was mistaken... or that this person claiming to be Ty was lying, or confused. When he stopped in the doorway Grady had almost confirmed that to be the case, because the man sitting on the exam bed didn't look much like Ty. At least not the Ty Grady remembered in January. This person had hair, and a beard. It did take him a moment or two to recognize his former deputy but once he did, Grady exhaled and stepped inside the room. He knew from Amelia that Ty didn't remember much about who he was so Grady couldn't exactly launch into the questions he had. "Grady Barrett," Grady told Ty, drawing out his badge quickly to show the man, in case he wanted to confirm it. "How are you feeling?"
Ty had been nervous, but there was something kind of soothing about being in the hands of medical professionals. Maybe it was a false sense of security, but their cool professionalism as they checked his vitals and eyes and ears and everything was reassuring. No matter what was happening to him, it would get sorted out somehow. That was what he hoped, anyway. He’d said goodbye to ‘Lyra’ and expected she would call the sheriff right away, but Ty was still a little surprised at the speed in which the man arrived. The nurse who’d been checking his blood pressure glanced between them, gathered her things, and quietly left the room. Ty glanced at the badge Grady showed him, then met the man’s eyes again with a small smile. “Tired and pretty confused, but okay otherwise,” he answered honestly. “You were my boss?”
After the nurse slipped out, Grady put his badge away and quietly shut the door, just so they wouldn't have any eavesdroppers hanging around outside. He turned back to Ty, walking further into his room, though he kept a comfortable distance, just in case Ty was feeling skittish. Grady had no idea where Ty had been, or what he had been through. "I was," he confirmed. "You were a deputy in this town. Your family still lives here." Jared, on the other hand... but Grady kept himself focused. "Can you tell me anything about where you've been? Or what happened?" Amelia had already told him that Ty had no memory of who he was, or where he was, but Grady was hoping something would jump start those memories and maybe all of this was just disorientation.
Ty was watchful, but not threatened by the man in uniform. Grady seemed surprised but not incredulous about all of this, and Ty wondered how common this kind of thing was. It had happened to Amelia too, apparently, only different. Besides, the sheriff had a kind face and his voice was even and gentle enough. Ty wanted to ask about his family, but he opted to answer the questions first, some deep instinct to provide a report coming forward. “I can tell you a lot, it might not be in any kinda order though,” he warned with a faint smile. “I don’t remember anything that happened before I was there, and my time there’s all jumbled up and fragmented, but ... it was like ... a mock version of a town. Buildings and streets and stuff, but everything was fucked up and rusty and overly aged. There was fog everywhere, with creatures in it. There was stuff floating in the air, it was just kind of thick in general. All the water was bad, there was no food. I don’t know how we lived there as long as we did, but ...” Ty trailed off and gestured at himself, the living proof that they’d survived. Most of them, anyway.
The urge to pull out his notebook to write all of this down was strong, but Grady wanted to keep this as informal as he could. He had a good memory, so he filed it all away as Ty spoke. The description of where he had been sent a chill down his spine. Where was this place? How did Ty get back? He recalled the fog so vividly and what had been lurking in it. Grady had no idea how the place Ty was describing connected to those particular days in Point Pleasant, but that was something they could investigate later. Maybe he could get Ty to come down to the station once he was cleaned up and feeling better, to give Grady a more formal statement. "We," Grady said, zeroing in on that particular phrase. "Do you remember how many were with you? Or who they were? Did any return with you?"
His gaze drifted off to one side as he thought hard to try and answer Grady’s question. “There were ... nine or ten of us, maybe a dozen at most,” Ty said slowly after a pause. “I don’t think we all stayed together the whole time, there were people kind of in and out. As for who they were ...” He shook his head a bit and looked apologetic. “I can maybe toss out a few first names and vague descriptions, but I don’t know how helpful that’ll be, sorry. But uh, no on that last bit. I woke up alone. And if I did something special to get out of there, I don’t remember it.” Ty had no idea why he was back, or if it would all suddenly change again. He was fairly sure he wasn’t hallucinating or still asleep now, but what if that place wasn’t done with him? What if he’d become unmoored in reality and would slip back and forth between dimensions forever? That was a terrifying thought that made him want to grip the sides of the bed under him, but he resisted the urge.
"Anything and everything you remember is helpful," Grady assured him. Even first names and vague descriptions. They had a list of people who allegedly went missing back in January, some who had been confirmed to have been on Witcham Road that night. But they also had a handful of names that they hadn't been able to say with complete certainty had been involved. It was a little disheartening that no one had seemed to "come back" with Ty, but if he was back, there was always the possibility the others would return as well. "You've been gone close to four months. We have a lot of friends and families without any answers. The more we know, the better we can try to figure out what happened."
Ty nodded, fully understanding that. It made him worry a bit about those families and friends starting to come to him for answers that he didn’t have. It made him want to ask about his own people, but the helpful side of his nature insisted on answering Grady’s questions first. With a lot of thought, ticking them off on his fingers, Ty slowly listed all of the names he could recall -- Sage, Brianna, Miriam, Greer, Archer, and a teen girl named Elodie. “There were a few more, I just ... can’t remember their names. One was this kinda crazy-looking older guy that almost never stayed with us. We holed up in a bed and breakfast type place for most of it. Where we could fortify a bit.”
Some of the names he recognized. A few he didn't, but he mentally filed them away to look into when he got back to the station. "Bed and breakfast," Grady repeated. "That sounds like it could have been Juniper Inn, if the place was really a mirror of Point Pleasant." It was easy enough to narrow it down, considering the town only had one B&B. "And you don't recall anything that happened prior to ending up there? No idea how you got there in the first place, or why?" Ty had already said he couldn't remember, but it never hurt to push a little. Gently, of course.
The name Juniper rang a bell, but only because people had said it on the other side. Ty got the strange sense that he knew more about who he was over there, it was just hard to remember now. He hoped that meant it would start to come back to him. This fog clouding his brain wasn’t fun. He shook his head slowly at Grady’s questions, his expression turning kind of troubled. “I feel like it was bad, whatever it was,” he murmured. “There’s a lot of ... guilt, mixed in with what I do remember. I was sad a lot. But anything about what actually happened, no. It’s all just blank.” He paused, his gaze snapping back to Grady with sudden alarm. “Did I kill someone? Do you know what happened?”
"You didn't kill anyone," Grady said, quick to assure him even though Grady knew he couldn't be sure of that himself. He was aware of what had happened, of who had been affected and why. After that night in January, most of the town had bounced back. People had gotten better. Healthier. But there had been some who had been too far gone. Some had fallen into comas and had never woken up. But Grady couldn't say who was to blame for that. Someone specific? Or Ty and the others as a whole? They had no real answers. Only speculation. And wasn't that just the way of things? "You got hurt a while back," he explained. "Whatever it was that hurt you... infected you with something. You were feeding off of energy, for lack of a better way to put it. There were a lot of people who got sick. But you weren't the only one. The people you mentioned, they had all been injured the way you had been. We don't believe any of you were in your right mind." Grady paused. "I knew you pretty well, and I know you would never deliberately hurt anyone."
Ty’s frown deepened as Grady described what had been going on. It didn’t sound crazy or far-fetched to Ty, not considering where he’d just come from. He didn’t like the idea of feeding off of people. Had they all been doing that to each other on the other side? They hadn’t needed to eat or drink, or they all would have been dead within a couple of weeks. But nobody had gotten exhausted or sick like Grady was saying had happened here. It was good to hear that he hadn’t killed anyone before disappearing, and that wasn’t in his character. Ty didn’t want to find out he was a bad person. “I don’t remember any of that,” he muttered, more to himself. Ty licked his lips. “Do you know ... Am-- Lyra, who brought me here, she said I have family? Do you know if they’re okay? And like, who they are?”
Grady made a mental note to talk to one of the doctors about Ty's memory before he left. He had no idea if the amnesia was temporary or not but it would be beneficial to have some clarity on Ty's physical and mental health. "Your mother and aunt live in town," Grady explained, aware of who Lyra really was. "They're both fine. Worried about you, of course. We can call them for you, once you feel up to it. It might do you good to have some family by your side." He hesitated before adding, "Your partner, Jared Gaines... he moved to Texas after you disappeared. He'll definitely want to know that you're okay, but I won't call him without your permission."
A mother and an aunt, and they were okay. That was good news, but strange at the same time. Ty couldn’t remember their faces, and he knew that would likely break their hearts for a while. He was hoping it was temporary too. Something about the way Grady said ‘partner’ gave him a bit of pause. It seemed like a lot of information to give for just a work partner, but maybe they’d been closer as cops. Grady hadn’t said ‘friend’ though. “My partner? Like ... cop partner?” he asked, a note of doubt in his voice.
"Uh." It wasn't unusual for Grady to feel awkward when discussing someone else's personal life, though he was generally pretty professional about it when it had to happen with someone he didn't know fairly well. But these were different circumstances because Ty couldn't remember Jared, which Grady was sure would be really tough for Jared to hear. He cleared his throat. "Your... life partner. Boyfriend." His face scrunched up for a brief moment and he sort of wished Amelia was still there with him. She probably would have been able to explain it with less discomfort. "He was a deputy as well, so I suppose your partner on the force too, when we needed the two of you to pair up."
Ty’s brows lifted with surprise, though he couldn’t quite place why that was strange. All of his childhood conditioning and the reasons he’d spent so many years in the closet were still humming under the murky surface of his thoughts. “Oh,” he said softly. Ty was quiet for a minute as that bit of information about himself sank in. He was gay. Interesting. Grady didn’t seem entirely comfortable with it, but if Ty had been out enough for his boss to know about his boyfriend, he must not have been ashamed. That was good to know too. “And he left after uh, after what happened? If you think ... yeah, if you think it was serious enough and he’d wanna know ... you can call him.” A serious romantic partner might know him better than his own family would, but Ty imagined that was going to be even more painful. If he and this Jared had been in love. “My mom too. I don’t wanna make anybody wait.”
Grady didn't say a word, but let Ty process it as he needed to. It wasn't that he was uncomfortable having to essentially tell Ty that he was gay... he was just uncomfortable explaining any aspect of his deputy's private life. Grady enjoyed getting drinks with the people he worked with, but he tried hard not to get too involved outside of work. "He stuck around for a while, hoping we could find you. But yes, he moved to Texas when it became clear you were gone. I'll call him for you, and your mother. I assume they're going to want to check you over a bit more before they let you go, is that right?"
Ty nodded, telling himself not to get too caught up in wondering about the boyfriend. There was a possibility he might not come back at all. Maybe they weren’t that serious about each other. He needed to think about how to handle his family first, the ones in town. “Yeah, they’re gonna take some blood and somebody said I could take a shower here,” he said, glancing toward the door of the hospital room again. “There’s food coming too. So I’ll be here a while.” They’d wanted to put him on IV fluids to make sure he got rehydrated as soon as possible, but Ty had managed to talk them into waiting until he could clean up a bit -- he felt like a walking infection factory at the moment. But talking to Grady had taken precedence.
"All right." Grady nodded, still planning on talking to the doctor. He knew there was only so much they could tell him about Ty, but Grady wanted to make sure Ty stayed put as well. Maybe he would call Jansen to come hang out and keep an eye on things. "I'll call your family, and Jared." Grady reached into his front shirt pocket and pulled out his card, offering it to Ty. "My cell, and the number to the station. I'll be in touch but in the meantime, if you need anything, don't hesitate to call me, all right?"
Nerves fluttering in his stomach, Ty reached out to accept the business card. He knew his family would probably rush to see him, he just hoped that he was done showering by then. Ty itched all over -- a feeling he was unfortunately used to at this point -- and he knew he probably smelled terrible. If he was going to be getting intense hugs from people who were strangers to him, he wanted to at least be clean. The nurse had said they could probably find some scrubs to fit him too, since his clothes were disgusting. “Thank you, Sheriff Barrett,” he said, looking at Grady again. “I really uh, hope I’m able to tell you more soon.”
"I hope you'll able to as well." Grady offered him a small, but reassuring smile. "We'll talk soon." He knew Ty probably wanted to shower and get cleaned up. He looked terrible and could probably use a good meal and some sleep. Hopefully his family wouldn't overwhelm him too much. Not wanting to linger, Grady headed for the door, already preparing for the next couple of phone calls he would have to make. At least he was giving good news, instead of something that would hurt. Ty had some memory loss, but he was alive and Grady was sure that would be enough for Ty's family and Jared.