A Note From Ben: I wasn't originally planning to finish this story. You see, when I started it, I was writing it with my then-girlfriend Flabz. We were having a lot of fun coming up with new ideas for chapters. Then we broke up. I didn't want to continue OUR story anymore, because it didn't feel right to be writing it by myself. Still, people kept pestering me about it. People actually wrote to me and asked me if they could finish it FOR me. It really began to get to me. I didn't think the story was that good to begin with. Then came kylesdreamgirl. She spammed my inbox with pleas for me to finish. She sent me a review telling me how much she needed me to continue this story. This time I actually considered it, though where I was originally going with this story I've long since forgotten, so what I had to do was come up with some new ideas. This story will continue as something completely different than what I had originally planned. I really hope you enjoy it as much as you claimed to enjoy the other two chapters. After all, I came back to this story just because you all asked me to, so I hope I can live up to your expectations.

Chapter Two – Home

When our story resumes, we are standing in the parking lot of the hospital, staring at two glass doors, which are closed. We stand here for one beat, two beats, three beats, before the doors slide open and we see Kyle walking out very slowly with his parents. Stan is by his side every step of the way, ready to catch him if he falls or stumbles. There is worry etched across his face, though he tries very hard to look brave whenever Kyle is looking at him.

"You gonna be okay?" Kyle asks.

"I should be asking you the same thing," Stan replies.

"I'll be fine, Stan," Kyle says as they make their way toward the car. "Tell me, are you always such a mother hen?"

Stan doesn't reply to this. He just looks away, as if unsure of what to say, and continues walking.

"I'm gonna take that as a yes, then," Kyle says with a smirk. "Don't think my head injury made me dumb, Stan. I know you're worried about me, but I'm fine, really. Other than I can't remember anything about my own life, I'm doing great. Fit as a fiddle."

Stan mumbles something, but we can't hear what he says.

"What was that, Stan?" Kyle replies. "I can't quite make out what you're saying when you mumble."

"I said I'm just looking out for you. I didn't realize that was a bad thing."

"Stanley," Sheila says, "Kyle doesn't know you anymore, so to him your concern over his well-being might be a little disconcerting. Think of how you felt if some stranger walked up to you in the supermarket and started fretting over every little step you made. It's the same thing to him."

"Yeah, Stan," Kyle agrees. "I don't know you. I don't know who you are, so give me a little space, will ya?"

"Sorry, Kyle."

"That's okay, Stan. I know you mean well."

They reach the car and Gerald helps Kyle get in the backseat. Stan opens his door to climb in, and we zoom into the car before he can do so. We make ourselves at home between the two front seats, looking back toward where Stan and Kyle are sitting. Stan buckles his seat belt, and Kyle follows his lead.

"Wait till you see the town," Stan says as Sheila cranks up the engine.

"It's really something, huh?" Kyle replies. "It'll be my first time seeing it."

"That's a really strange concept for me," Stan says, "because we were both born and raised in South Park. We've spent our whole lives here."

"Yeah," Kyle says, turning away and looking out the window. It's clear that Stan has hit a sore spot for Kyle. Kyle must be feeling such frustration at not being able to remember anything, and here Stan is, talking about their old hometown as though nothing bad had happened, as if he were still the same Kyle Stan had grown up with.

The car begins to move, and as it does Kyle lets out a sigh and closes his eyes. Stan looks over at him, that same look of concern on his face, but he keeps his mouth shut this time, which is wise of him. Kyle doesn't look like he's in the mood to put up with much.

After a few moments, Stan stops fretting over Kyle and snuggles down into his seat. He pulls out his iPod and sticks the headphones in his ears. We can't tell what he's listening to, only that it must be some kind of metal or rock, as after a little while, Stan starts playing air guitar and bobbing his head to the music. He has his eyes closed, so he doesn't see Kyle look up and catch him at this. An amused smirk stretches across his face as he watches. Clearly, Stan's antics must be a hoot to him. The old Kyle would have shrugged this off, having seen it before many times, but this Kyle has no recollection of ever seeing this before, and therefore finds it funny. Stan opens his eyes and sees Kyle watching him. He clears his throat, pulls the headphones out of his ears, and sits stiff and rigid, looking straight ahead and trying to play it off. This amuses Kyle even more, and he starts giggling.

"You really get into that music, don't you?" Kyle asks, grabbing the iPod off of Stan's lap. "So what is this thing?"

"It's an iPod," Stan says.

"iPod."

"Plays music, video, applications, all kinds of stuff," Stan explains. "It's like a little hand-held computer."

"Wow," Kyle says, looking it over.

"That particular iPod has a lot of sentimental value for me," Stan continues. "It was a gift."

"Oooh," Kyle says, wiggling his eyebrows, "from a girl?"

"No," Stan says, clearing his throat again. "It was, um, from you."

"Oh."

"You gave it to me for Christmas last year," Stan says, a smile on his face. "You said to me 'Just because I'm Jewish and can't celebrate Christmas, that doesn't mean I can't give my best friend a damn Christmas present.'"

"Wait a second," Kyle says, cutting him off. "I'm Jewish?"

"You don't even remember that?" Stan replies, shocked.

"No."

"Well, you're Jewish, from a proud Jewish family."

"That's right, Kyle," Sheila says from the front. "You even taught your little brother how to play dreidel. It was so precious..."

"And when were you planning on telling me all of this?" Kyle demands.

"We were planning on doing it later on today, Kyle," Gerald explains. "We just didn't want to overburden you with too much at one time, so we thought we'd take it slow."

"You're taking it too slow, if you ask me," Kyle says.

"Why do you say that?" Stan asks.

"Because they haven't told me anything, except that they're my parents, you're my best friend, and the little flappy-headed kid is supposed to be my brother. Everything else is a mystery to me. I don't even know how I lost my memory. Can you at least tell me that much?"

Stan bites his lip and looks away. He definitely doesn't want to start things off with Cartman and the knife, or his three-story fall to the ground below. It would be horrible to burden him with that now, and they all know this. They just don't know how to tell Kyle this delicately.

"I, um, don't think that's a good way to start things out, Kyle," Stan says.

"Oh, that figures!" Kyle barks. "The first thing I ask about, and you won't tell me."

"Kyle, I..."

"Leave me alone, Stan."

They lapse into silence and our journey moved on. Out the windows, we can see we are coming into what looks like a small town. This is South Park, a small town of about a thousand people. As the town moves by us, Kyle looks out his window, dismayed that it all looks so foreign to him. After all, he's lived here his whole life, yet it's like he's seeing it all for the first time. We can see Kyle get more and more depressed the longer it goes on.

We cut to an outside view of the car pulling into the driveway in front of a big green house. This is the same green house from which Kyle took his unfortunate tumble. We'll talk more about that later. For now, our focus should be on the four people getting out of the car. Gerald and Sheila get out first. Gerald goes to Kyle's door and opens it.

"Do you need a hand, son? Give me your arm."

"I've got it under control, dad!" Kyle says through his teeth. "Just back off and let me do this."

"Okay, okay," Gerald says, raising his hands and backing away, "I was only trying to help."

Kyle growls in irritation and gets out of the car. He looks around at the things that should be so familiar: his home, his yard, the constant coating of snow on the ground. None of these things seem to ring a bell for him as he looks around, frowning.

"Nothing?" Stan asks as he walks up to him.

"I don't remember a thing," Kyle says. "Not a damn thing."

"Don't worry, Kyle," Stan says. "Maybe your room will do the trick. There's nothing more you than your bedroom."

Sheila unlocks the door and everyone goes inside. We follow behind them and swoop in before the door is closed in our faces. Stan and Kyle go up the stairs while Gerald and Sheila head toward the kitchen, probably to make lunch. We follow Stan and Kyle up to the second floor, where Stan leads Kyle to a door with a Yelawolf poster on it.

"This one," he says.

"Who's Yelawolf?" Kyle asks.

"He's your favorite rapper," Stan replies. "You've got all his music, even his underground stuff."

"Doesn't ring a bell," Kyle says.

"Well, go inside," Stan says, gesturing toward the door. "Maybe your inner sanctum will jar something loose in your head."

There's a moment, two, three, then Kyle is reaching for the knob, moving slow, the need for this to work written all over his face. He turns the knob, waits, gives the door a slight push. It opens slow, so slow, so he puts his hand on it and pushes harder. The door swings open and he steps in, and we follow him, of course. In Kyle's room, we see that he's a very tidy boy. Everything in his room is in a place, organized, and sorted in various ways.

In one corner, a small desk sits under a window, where sunlight beams in and there is a wonderful view of the neighborhood. On this desk are various things in tidy piles: homework here, printouts there, and one picture of Stan and Kyle standing on the beach. There are big goofy grins on their faces and their arms are over each others shoulders. They look to be about twelve in the photograph. Both are wearing nothing but swim trunks. We'll see this picture again later, so remember it.

Turning our attention back to Kyle, we see him walking slowly around the room, looking at things. He takes a well-worn book off the shelf. He looks at it for moment, then puts it back. He walks over to the desk, opens the drawer, looks inside. There's a small green book here that we didn't see before. It has the word JOURNAL emblazoned across the front. He picks it up, opens it, flips through the pages, pausing on various passages.

"Is it bringing anything back?" Stan asks.

"Hold on," Kyle says, not looking up from the book. He reads for several minutes, his face changing, reacting to various things he's reading. He finally looks up. "It's like reading about someone else's life," he says. "It feels like prying."

"Really?"

"Yeah," Kyle says. "Take this passage, for instance:

"'Dear Journal:

"Today Stan and I went over to Cartman's house because we heard he had the Terrance and Phillip movie on Blu-Ray. That wouldn't be such a big deal, except Stan was all excited about it because it's supposed to have these exclusive-to-Blu-Ray deleted scenes that he really wanted to see. I just don't want Cartman ripping on me the whole time we're over there. Why does he have to be such an asshole all the time? What did I ever do to him? Oh, well. If he starts in on me today, I'll just leave. I'm not putting up with that shit.'

"Who's Cartman? What's his beef with me?"

"Kyle..."

"Don't feed me that 'I don't think it's the right time' shit on me, either, Stan," Kyle says.

"But it's not!"

"I don't care," Kyle says. "Don't you get it? I don't remember anything!"

He throws the journal at Stan, who ducks out of the way. The book hits the wall and bounces off. It thuds against the carpet and flaps open, one page lying exposed to the world.

"I don't care if you don't think I'll like what I remember," Kyle snarls. "I just want to remember something. Anything!"

"Well, why don't we start out small?" Stan says. "I'll tell you stories from the past, things about you that I know, and we'll see if anything jogs your memory."

"And you won't leave anything out?" Kyle asks.

"I won't leave anything out," Stan says.

"Promise?"

"Promise. In the meantime, why don't you read that journal of yours? It'll give you a more personal look at your own life than I could ever give you."

"I'll do that."

"And there are more journals than that," Stan says, walking to the big closet and opening it. We hear him rummaging around inside, and Kyle pretends to be offended.

"What are you doing?" he asks playfully. "Did I give you permission to go digging through my closet?"

"Oh, I do this all the time," Stan says, emerging with a big box. He puts it down and pulls it open. "You're always sending me to your room after something."

"Oh."

Inside the box are piles and piles of notebooks. All of them have the word JOURNAL written across the front, along with the date the journal was started and the date it was finished. All of them are organized to make them easier to search through.

"You've been keeping journals all your life, Kyle," Stan says. "Since you learned to write. You've probably got the most accurate account of your entire life right here in this box."

"Wow," Kyle says. "If anything will help my memory, this should be it."

"Right," Stan agrees. "If this doesn't work, nothing will."

They're both silent for a minute, then Kyle begins digging through the box. He pulls out an entire stack of journals and pulls the one from the bottom, the one with the earliest date on it. He flips it open and reads the first page aloud.

"Deer Jurnul:

"I met a kid named Stan in skool today. He was cool."

Kyle looks up at Stan.

"My earliest journal entry, and it's about you," he says.

"Well, I did make quite an impression upon you, if I remember correctly."

"I want you to tell me about it," Kyle says, "right now."

"Right now?" Stan says, raising his eyebrows. "Are you sure?"

"Yes, it's the perfect place to start," Kyle replies. "Now tell me."

Stan sighs and sits down on the bed. We can tell this is going to be a long story.

"Although we've been around each other since we were in diapers," Stan says, "we didn't actually formally meet until preschool. It was the very first day of our very first school year away from home. I was feel nervous about it, so nervous I wanted to throw up..."

We pan up toward the ceiling as he talks. Suddenly everything goes fuzzy and we blur to a big blue sky over a small sleeping town. We cut to a very small Stan being walked to the car by his parents, who were are meeting for the first time here. Hold Stan's left hand is a man with black hair and a black mustache, and we can't help but notice how he's similar in appearance to a cheap porn star. This is Randy Marsh, a geologist who works for the US Geological Survey. We can tell by looking at him that he's a good father, a good provider, a good man.

Holding Stan's right hand is a simple looking woman wearing a knit sweater. She smiles as she escorts her son to the car, but we can tell by the look in her eyes that she's having trouble not crying. She's obviously struggling with the idea of giving up her baby. Most parents do.

They buckle him into his car seat, then climb into the car. They pull out and drive away from their home. In the car with Stan, we can see he's apprehensive about something.

"What's wrong, Stan?" Randy asks.

"Nothin'," Stan replies.

"Liar, liar, pants on fire," Randy prods. "Come on, tell me what's up."

Stan sits there for several minutes, not saying anything.

"Come on," Randy prompts again. "We're your parents. If you can't tell us, who can you tell? What's bothering you?"

Another minute of silence, and then Stan speaks.

"Scared."

"Scared of what, sweetie?" Sharon coos.

"What if the other kids don't like me? What if they pick on me?"

"Oh, Stan, who couldn't love you?" Sharon asks.

"And if they decide they don't," Randy adds as they pull up to the school, "just punch them in the nose. That'll teach 'em."

"Punch them in the nose, got it," little Stan says as he unbuckles himself.

"Stan, no!" Sharon cries. "Randy, tell him you didn't mean it!"

Randy just laughs and thuds his palms against the steering wheel.

Sharon takes Stan out of the car and carries him into the school. We walk ahead of them, looking back at them. We hear Sharon muttering in Stan's ear.

"Don't listen to your father, Stan," she says. "He's an idiot. Don't punch anyone in the nose."

"'Kay, mom."

We step to the side and let them pass as they open the doors and step inside. We follow right behind them, down the hall to a small classroom where a group of tiny children are sitting in a circle, each with their fingers over their lips.

"Very good," the teacher is saying when we come in. "Now stay like that until I tell you to move, okay?"

She turns her attention to Sharon and Stan.

"Welcome, little Stan!" she coos. "Ooh, you're just as cute as a button, aren't you? Well, come inside. He can join our circle. We were just having quiet time. Stan sit in the circle with the other children and put your finger against your lips, okay?"

"Why?"

"Because that's what we're doing right now," the teacher says, "and we do everything as a group here."

"Guess that's okay," Stan mumbles, burying his face in his mother's shirt.

Sharon kisses him and puts him down. He wanders over and sits next to a kid with an orange parka over his face. We'll meet him in a little while. For now, it's quiet time for the kids. Stan sits quietly with his finger over his lips, but his attention is drawn toward another boy sitting across the circle from him. His hair is a fiery mane. His freckles cover his face. Stan wonders what his name is. We don't follow Sharon and the teacher as they step out into the hallway to speak because this is Stan's memory. Stan sits right where he is, finger over his lips, not moving.

A fat kid with a wicked grin sits a quarter of the way around the circle from Stan. We can see right away that this is a younger version of Eric Cartman. As soon as the teacher is out of the room, he takes his finger off his lips and looks over at Stan.

"Well, look what we have here," he whispers. "New meat."

Stan gulps at this, but does not take his finger off his mouth.

"Rule number one around here," Cartman says, "I'm number one. Rule number two: if you forget rule number one, you get your ass beat."

If these words seem a little much coming from a preschooler, please remember that Eric Cartman has never been normal for his age. He's always been more devious, more evil than anyone else in town. As a preschooler, he was more like a sixth or seventh grader as far as his pure cruelty could go.

The door opens and the teacher walks back in. Cartman quickly puts his finger back over his mouth.

"Well done, children," the teacher says. "You were very good. Now who's ready for a little fun time?"

We cut to the children doing finger paintings. We move down the line of children, looking at their various pictures. One child has drawn what looks like a bear, while another child has drawn what looks like people of all races, religions, and countries holding hands under a rainbow. When we pass Cartman's desk, it is a little disturbing to see that he's drawing a cat impaled upon a stick. The caption below says KITY ATE MY POT PIE. We move past him quickly and come upon Stan a few kids down, drawing a picture of three stick figures smiling in front of a house. The teacher walks up behind him.

"Aww, Stan, is that your family?"

"Yes, ma'am," he says. "Everyone but my sister. She's a bitch."

"Stanley, we do not use language like that in this classroom!" the teacher scolds.

"Sorry, ma'am," he says.

The teacher walks away. We pan over to the next kid in line, a little blonde boy with a big round face. He's drawing a picture of an apple while singing softly to himself.

"Loo, loo, loo, I've got some apples..." he croons.

This is Butters, but we'll meet him in a few minutes. He's got a pretty big part in this story, so you'll be seeing a fair bit of him. We scroll past him, the next kid, and the next, to that same redheaded boy Stan was looking at earlier. He's drawing a picture of the Star of David on his paper, or at least making an attempt to do so. Both of the triangles are facing the wrong direction, but we'll forgive little Kyle this, as he is just a little fellow. We stop here and watch him painting, his little pink tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth in concentration. He dips his fingers in the green paint and draws what we'll have to assume is a tree.

We look up and see Stan looking in this direction, looking at Kyle again. He's curious, so he's not focused on his own work. Because our attention is focused this way, we see the teacher slip quietly out the door, trying to be sneaky about it. Eric Cartman sees her do this and jumps up with glee. He dabs his fingers in several different colors of paint, then walks over to Kyle and runs his fingers through his red hair. Kyle screams and jerks away, and Cartman's grubby, paint-covered fingers slide down Kyle's face, streaking it with paint.

"Why did you do that?" Kyle asks, close to tears.

Cartman grabs a fistful of hair and pulls.

"Because I can, Jew," he says. "Because I don't like your kind. Weir mussen die Juden ausrotten!"

He slaps Kyle across the face, leaving a tell-tale handprint covered with paint. Kyle begins to cry. Stan has seen enough. He marches over Cartman and taps him on the shoulder. When Cartman spins around, we see a brief flashback of Stan's dad telling him to punch troublemakers in the nose, then we're back. Stan takes his father's advice and bashes him across the face. Cartman falls to the ground and begins to cry.

"What are you crying for?" Stan asks. "I didn't even hit you that hard."

"Yes you d-d-did!" Cartman wails.

Attracted by all the crying, the teacher comes rushing back in and sees Stan standing over Cartman and Kyle, both of whom are crying. She rushes over and pulls him away.

"What did you do?" she demands.

"N-nothin'," he stutters, terrified.

"I asked you what you did," she says. "Now tell me the truth!"

Stan begins to cry himself, and soon everyone in the classroom is crying. The teacher rushes around, trying to calm everyone down. She manages to achieve this with a hand puppet. As she talks to it, the children fall silent, entranced.

"Now," she makes the sock puppet say in a goofy cartoon voice, "who wants to tell me what happened here today?"

Nobody says anything.

"Lucky Larry says all good boys and girls tell the truth," she prods again. "Come on."

"Well, gee golly, if Lucky Larry says it, uh, why it must be true," Butters says.

"What did you see, Butters?" she asks, walking up to him.

"Uh, Cartman started picking on Kyle, uh, and Stan was standin' up for him. He was savin' him!"

"Is that true, Kyle?" she asks Kyle.

"Yes, ma'am," he mutters, looking at the ground. He scuffs his tiny shoe against the floor.

She looks at the paint handprint on Kyle's face, the matted paint in his hair, Cartman's busted nose, and she puts it all together.

"Well, let's have a big hand for Stan, then, everybody," she says.

The kids burst into applause and Stan turns red. The teacher grabs Cartman and drags him away,

"No," he squeaks in his tiny voice. "I'm seriouslah! I'm gonna get you guys for this, especially that Jew!"

"That is enough," she says as she pulls him from the room.

While the teacher is gone, everyone begins to chat about what happened. It was the most exciting thing that has ever happened to them! Stan goes back to his painting, and we focus on him for a minute or two. We see someone walk up behind him and tap him on the shoulder, but we can't see who it is. Stan looks up and we zoom out to reveal Kyle standing there.

"Thanks for your help," he says.

"You're welcome," Stan replies. "Wanna hang out together at recess?"

"Okay," Kyle says, holding his hand out. "I'm Kyle."

Stan shakes his hand.

"Stan."

We dissolve back to the present, where Stan is sitting on Kyle's bed and Kyle is sitting in his computer chair.

"And we haven't left each others side since then," Stan finishes. "We've just... always been there for each other."

"Wow," Kyle says, "this Cartman guy sounds like a real asshole."

"Oh, he is," Stan replies. "He is."

"I hope I don't run into him any time soon."

"Don't worry," Stan says. "You won't."

"Why is that?"

From downstairs, we hear Sheila call them for lunch. Stan gets up and stretches.

"Maybe we should save that story for another time," he says.

"Maybe you're right," Kyle says. "Besides, I'm starving. I hope I enjoy Jewish food. I can't remember if I do or not."

Next: Adjusting