This is for all of you who revieved and prodded and encouraged me to finish. I wanted to do this for all of you who enjoyed my work, even when I was just beginning. I appreciate all the support I have recieved for this story, and my others. I hope you like this, it was kinda thrown together quickly, but I think it's appropriate. Thanks again!
Chapter 21
Oliver's POV
"Oh Merlin, I'm horrible," I thought as I floated in front of the rings.
I was currently in the semi-finals of the international Quidditch Cup. I was nervous as hell, especially since Katie wasn't there. She was still away at school, doing finals for her first year away at the academy. I wasn't doing very well either; I'd let a couple Quaffles that I shouldn't have. The coach kept motioning to me to pick it up, but it did nothing to help my anxiety.
I had had a lot of hype over playing for Scotland's National Team. A lot of people saying that the coaches had made a wonderful decision by asking me to play, since I had had a really good season with Puddlemere. But with that, a lot of people were picking at me, saying my left (non-throwing/catching) arm was too weak to be playing in such intense competition, and that someone more seasoned should have been picked.
I really wanted Katie there. It made me feel so much better to look into the crowd and see her face smiling at me, encouraging me.
"God Damn finals," I mumbled.
All the sudden I had a chaser coming full force at me. I tried to put all my concentration and force into stopping it. No such luck. I suck.
"TIME OUT!" I heard the coach yell from the bench.
"Ah, damn," I thought as I floated down.
"What the bleeding hell is wrong with you today? Or the past week for that matter?"
"I don't know sir," I said.
I really did. I didn't like having Katie so unavailable all the time. I didn't like all the negative press I was getting, it was really messing with me psychologically. I knew this was all going to be happening for me, but it didn't really help. The Leola pregnancy mess wasn't doing any wonders either.
From what I had heard, she had a baby boy who was blond with brown eyes. Sound like me? I didn't think so either. But that never stopped her or the paparazzi from claiming that I was the father. She demanded a paternity test, and I was planning on doing it right after this Quidditch stuff was done. I couldn't wait for this to be over and me be proven not to be the father (like I already knew).
"Well, you're out for the rest of this game. You need to sit and relax. You're cracking under pressure," the coach stated as I slowly came back to earth.
I nodded resentfully.
Sitting down, I put my head in my hands. This was bullshit; I knew I was better than this.
"What happened?" I heard Katie's crystal clear voice ring out behind me.
"How did you get back here? Aren't you supposed to be in the middle of an exam?" I questioned frantically as I got up and hugged her tightly.
"I flirted with security and told my professor that I could get her stellar tickets and a chance to meet you if she let me write it tomorrow," she replied and hugged me back. "You smell by the way."
"I know. I reek of failure. I haven't been doing so well. And you shouldn't bribe people like that."
"Oh well, it worked, and I'm here. Are you going to be put back on later? Or are you out for the count?"
"Out for the count."
"I'm sorry," she said frowning.
"It's ok, it's not your fault."
At least we won the game. The second keeper picked up my slack and managed to save everything that came at him. I felt jealous and ashamed when the press swarmed him after the game, complimenting him endlessly.
"Look at it this way," Katie said, "At least we can leave in peace."
"I know. But I was so terrible today, I don't know what got into me," I replied, hanging my head as we walked out.
"Oh, Oliver!" I heard a voice ring out from behind me.
A familiar voice. A bad voice. Katie clenched up. She knew who it was.
I turned around, and had a baby thrust into my arms.
"Jesus! Don't you have any shame?" Katie yelled at Leola.
She smirked sardonically and turned back to me.
"Isn't he cute? He looks just like you!" she exclaimed in a shrill voice.
"He actually doesn't look anything like me," I replied, staring at the little boy in my arms.
The boy looked up at me disdainfully.
"Well he takes after his mother," Katie mumbled.
I snickered. The boy started crying.
"Look what you did!" Leola scorned to Katie and grabbed him out of my arms.
Katie rolled her eyes.
"Wait, from a different angle, he kinda looks like that lawyer you got after Oliver broke up with you. Tilt your head this way Oliver," Katie said and motioned her head.
"Yeah, you're kinda right," I said as I followed Katie's angle.
Leola let out a squawk of indignation.
"Next Wednesday, 2:30, Dr. Malcolm Sullivan's office. We'll settle this finally," Leola said forcefully, focusing on Katie, "You'll be in for a shock, missy."
"Go home, Leola. No one cares about your delusions," Katie said and sarcastically waved her off.
She sneered and walked off.
"I effin' hate her," Katie said and started walking towards the exit.
"Hey! Wait up!" I said and ran up beside her, "What's your hurry?"
"I just want to go home. I have a bad feeling about all this."
"What do you mean?" I asked concerned.
"That name… Malcolm Sullivan… I've heard it before, and I can't put my finger on it," Katie replied with a confused look on her face.
"The name really doesn't ring a bell to me," I said honestly.
"I'm going to go visit the archives of the Daily Prophet. I swear I know that name from somewhere. I'll drop by your house on my way home to tell you if I find anything interesting."
"Good luck," I said and gave her a quick peck on the cheek.
I apparated home and waited. Katie's intuition was pretty good, so if she thought something was up, then there was probably something up.
A few hours after I last spoke to her, she showed up at my house.
"I found something," she said manically as she rushed to the couch and sat down.
"And?"
"I searched and searched, but I finally found the article. He was found to have taken bribes from a woman who dated 'an unnamed celebrity' and got knocked up by someone else. He altered paternity tests to show that the rich guy was the father and the other guy wasn't so she could get money out of him to give the Dr. Malcolm for assisting her. Leola could have easily read this article and gotten the idea. No one really read this; the guy wanted it covered up pretty badly. That's where I remember his name from, I read this article a year ago. There was a small thing in the Academy newspaper on the ethics of healers and such today too."
I grabbed the copy of the article out of her hand.
"You have to be kidding me. I have to call another person to get this sorted out."
"Don't worry; I'm way ahead of you. I already called my family doctor; I put an appointment under Chloe's name. Next Wednesday," Katie said and smirked.
"I knew I loved you for a reason," I said and kissed her.
Leola protested everything I said to her when I called her to tell her. I finally convinced her to meet me here on Wednesday, so that we could go together. I could hear the fear in her voice, and it solidified everything that Katie had told me.
On that Wednesday, Leola met me at my house with her son and we went together, meeting Katie at her doctors' office. The doctor was none too impressed when he realized who he was dealing with, and that Katie had fraudulently used her sisters' name. But he did it. Leola, sensing everything was crashing down around her, broke down in the middle of it, and admitted that I wasn't the father, and that we had never even slept together.
Katie had a triumphant gleam in her eye, but had the elegance not to say anything.
Out of sympathy, I gave her some money to save so she could send her son to Hogwarts, if the time came.
"Don't try to shut me up with your damn money!" she screamed, ripping up the cheque I had given her.
"I'm just trying to help," I replied, shocked at her outburst.
"I don't need your help Oliver, you've helped me enough already!" she said sarcastically and stalked off.
"Well, that was… interesting," Katie said quietly.
The doctor, the poor elderly man, was too shocked and confused by the whole situation to say anything. He only nodded in agreement with Katie.
We left together, happy and relieved. Katie and I could really move on, with Leola and the whole mess I caused behind us. I read in the gossip column a couple days later that she said that Oliver wasn't the father, but some other, bigger name in Quidditch was. She was delusional and money-hungry.
"I don't really feel bad for her," Katie said as she skimmed the article, "She got what she deserved."
My happiness and relief soon turned to fear and anxiety. Winning the semi-final game (that I had been pulled out of) meant that we were going to finals. I had redeemed myself in practices and work-outs, showing that I could, in fact, save a quaffle. The coach announced that I was to be starting Keeper, and I felt a little sick to my stomach.
"I hate this, why did I ever decide to go into Quidditch?" I moaned to Katie the morning of the final game.
"You don't hate, you love it. You went into it because you're good at it," she said, rubbing my shoulders.
"Oh right."
Katie laughed.
"You need to relax sweetie! It's going to be fine. You'll save some, you'll win, and it'll be a good time all around. You've nothing to worry about," she said soothingly as she packed up a backpack to take to the game.
"I wish I was as confident as you are. I'm so nervous, it's ridiculous."
We headed out, her confident, me not so much. I didn't feel right about this game. But before I knew it, I was up there, watching it all in what felt like slow motion.
I looked over to Katie, and she smiled, trying to relax me from the stands. Suddenly, her eyes darted and I looked up to see someone trying to score on my watch. I darted to the right, just narrowly catching it and just narrowly missing a bludger flying at my head. I sat up straight on my broomstick, beaming. The cheers from the crowd dissolved most of my nervousness. I turned to face the other side of the stadium, and was greeted by the bludger I had just missed. I tried to dodge, but it hit me right on the side of my skull.
I couldn't see. I couldn't hear. I was dizzy and nauseous. My vision was blurry and I was blacking out. My eyes felt heavy, so heavy that I couldn't keep them open. I started falling, but I felt like I was flying. I looked around me to vaguely see people standing up, gasping. Or so I thought. I couldn't hear. Just by the black holes of their mouths.
I saw Katie. Her hair was like the sun. Her eyes wore a look of horror, as one hand covered her mouth, the other clutching at her chest.
I hit something hard. I supposed it was the ground. I landed with a bone shattering crunch. Pain started coursing though me. I looked at my leg, only to notice it was out at a 90 degree angle.
"That's not right," I thought. My words in my head sounded as though they were traveling through water.
My ribs hurt. My head hurt. I felt blood. I smeared it away, only to discover it was coming out of my left ear.
"Now that's really not right!" I said out loud.
In a moment of clarity, I knew that this was the moment I was going to die.
"Where am I?" I asked, "Wait… who am I?"
I noticed a blonde girl staring at me all funny.
"Who are you?"
"You don't know who I am?" she asked quietly.
She bit her lip and started crying.
"Who are you?" I asked a white clad person coming toward me.
"I'm a doctor. I'm your doctor. You had an accident."
"Oh. Who am I?"
"You're Oliver Wood," the doctor spoke.
"Oh."
"I'm Dr. Newport. Do you want to know what happened?"
"Sure."
"You were hit with a bludger during a Quidditch game, Oliver. You're a pro Keeper. You were playing for the Scottish National Team! You fell from your broom. You were pretty high up. You have a pretty nasty injury to your head, skull fracture to be exact."
"Me? No way! I'm not that good."
I laughed. This doctor was funny.
The blonde girl came back, still visibly upset.
"So he's lost his memory. He knows nothing of me, of his life, anything," she said.
"Pretty much," the doctor replied to her.
"Who are you?" I asked the blonde again.
"I'm Katie, Oliver," she said.
"Are you my sister?"
"No. You don't have a sister. I'm your girlfriend."
"Oh."
She turned back to the doctor.
"Will he ever remember?"
"More than likely. Probably just a bit of short term memory damage. It's just hard to say when. It could last another couple hours or it could last a year."
"A year?" the girl named Katie exclaimed.
"Like I said, it's hard to say. Everyone's case is different."
The doctor poked and prodded me. He gave me elixirs and potions. He asked me questions, some I knew, some I didn't.
He left, and 'Katie' sat down beside me.
"So you don't remember anything about me?"
I shook my head.
"I see."
I took advantage of the awkward silence to look over my body. Bandages, a cast and sling, some funny looking pink stuff on a cut. I looked so weird. I didn't even remember how I got them. Looks like a doozy though. I must have fallen from way high up.
"Are you in any pain?" she asked.
"Not really."
"Can I get you anything?"
"No."
"Anything you want me to explain to you?"
"How do I know you?"
"We went to school with one another. We played Quidditch together. We've been together for I don't know how long."
"Did I… I mean, do I love you a lot?"
"As far as I know."
"Do you love me?"
She nodded and started crying again.
"It's ok," I said, awkwardly patting her back.
"I'm sorry, I know this isn't really helping you," she said, and smiled, "I just don't know what to do! I mean, we woke up this morning and everything was fine! And now you're here! And you don't even remember me."
"Did we live together?" I asked confused.
"No. But you have a big house out in the country. I stay there sometimes with you," she said.
"How could I afford a house?!"
"You're a professional Quidditch Keeper, Oliver. You make buckets of money. Look," she said and handed me a magazine.
"Whoa! I'm on the cover!"
"Yeah, you're that good."
I smiled at her and she smiled back.
"Thanks. I don't really know you, but you're nice to have around."
She laughed and then cried a little.
"I didn't mean to make you cry."
"I know. I'm just sad."
"At least I'm not dead."
She snickered.
"I'm pretty happy about that," she said.
"Me too."
I elicited another snicker.
"I can see why you were my girlfriend. You're really pretty," I said.
"Thanks."
"Are you smart too?"
"Fairly."
"What do you do? Are you a Quidditch player too?"
"No, I'm at the Merlin Academy. Engineering."
"Wow."
"Yeah, I get that from most people."
"So you're nice, pretty and smart. Is there anything wrong with you?"
"This and that. You know," she said, then blushed. "Oh right… you don't know."
"Know what?"
"I'm just a little stubborn, that's all," she replied.
"Ah. I can deal with that."
I spent the rest of the day talking to Katie. She was so sweet and nice and fun, it was just hard to stop. I couldn't remember her, but I sure understood why I loved her. She answered all my questions, and was supportive and tried to make me remember. She brought my parents in to see me, but I didn't really remember them. My mum cried a lot. I gasped when I looked at my father; it was like looking into a mirror. Katie sat with me the whole time, trying to help me console my mother. She got me water when they left.
"Thanks for sticking with me all day, it must have been a little frustrating."
"It's not a problem, Oliver," she said and glanced down at her watch.
I noticed a gold ring on her middle finger.
"Did I give that to you?" I asked and grabbed at her hand.
"Yeah," she said smiling, "it's been through a lot."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, we broke up for awhile…"
"You mean I actually broke up with you?"
I was shocked at my stupidity.
"It was kinda the opposite," she replied.
"What did I do?"
"We won't get into that. I should go. It's late. But I'll come back tomorrow."
"I really don't want you to leave."
"I know, but you should rest."
"Fine, but you have to promise you'll be back."
"I promise, Oliver."
Katie's POV
I was beyond comprehension of this situation. I sat in my bedroom at my parents' house, just thinking about how to handle this. Oliver didn't remember me. Nothing. Nada. The slate had been swept clean. I had promised him that I would go back tomorrow, but I wasn't sure if I could, I wasn't sure I'd be able to face him, knowing all that I know, and him not knowing anything. I was only being cruel to myself. I didn't know when, or if, he'd remember everything.
What was a girl to do?
When I woke up the next morning, I was conflicted. I wanted to see him, to see his face and his smile. But I didn't want to see him, because I knew he'd just look at me with that vacant stare he had yesterday. Against better judgment, I got up, got ready and flooed my way over to the hospital.
"Morning Oliver," I said as I entered his room.
"Hi Katie," he mumbled.
"Tired?"
"No, they took me off the damn pain killers. Now I want to kill somebody."
"At least you remembered my name," I said softly.
He grumbled in response.
"Why did they take you off the medication?"
"They thought it might have something to do with my memory. So they stopped giving them to me."
"Oh," I said, trying to conceal my happiness.
"Can you get me some water?" he asked gruffly.
"Sure."
I bustled over to the tap, frantic in thought. Could it be possible they just over-medicated him? He could get his memory back at any given moment? I was shaking so bad, I could barely hold the cup underneath the faucet.
"Here you go," I said, and set it beside him.
He looked terrible. He had bags under his eyes and he was extremely pale.
"Thanks," he said and gulped down the water.
"Do you remember anything?" I asked genially.
He shook his head.
"I think I might try to go back to sleep," was all he said.
"Ok," I replied and played with his hair softly.
So, I waited. And waited and waited. Oliver was in a dead sleep. He wasn't moving, twitching or anything. I had to check several times to make sure he wasn't actually dead. Doctors entered and exited frequently. Running their wands over him, prodding, poking, nodding approvingly, or frowning in worry. I still sat and waited.
I was asleep when I felt a poke.
I woke up abruptly.
"Hi," I heard him say from his bed.
"Hi. How are you?"
"In pain."
"I'd imagine so," I said with a slight smile.
"That was the scariest moment of my life," he said softly, "falling like that."
"Mine too," I said absentmindedly, "Wait. What did you say?"
"Falling off my broom was the scariest moment of my life," he replied.
"You remember that?" I asked, almost in tears.
He nodded.
I started to choke on my words.
"Do you remember anything else? About me?"
"Of course. How could I forget."
"You don't… know what happened?"
"No. What are you talking about?"
"You fell hard and you couldn't remember a thing. You didn't even know who I was," I said and started crying.
"Shh… it's ok now love," he said and pulled me down beside him. He stroked my hair and held me until I stopped crying.
"Are you better now?" he asked.
"Yeah, a little. I was so worried," I told him.
He pulled me in a little closer.
"I know sweetie, but everything is going to be better now. I'm here, I'm healing. Everything is going to be great."
I lay next to him for a long time. Feeling him breathe in and out, listening to his heart beat, letting his body heat warm me to the core. I looked up at him; his eyes were shut. I smiled and kissed his chin.
"Hey beautiful," he said as his lips touched my forehead, "how are you?"
"Never been better," I replied and snuggled in deeper.
"Katie?" he said after a long silence.
"Yeah?"
"Will you marry me?"
"What?" I squeaked out.
My eyes flooded with tears and I thought my heart stopped beating.
"What did you say?" I demanded.
"Will you marry me?" he asked as he looked down into my eyes, "I don't think I can live without you."
I felt my breathing become strained and my heart started pounding. I smiled and cried and laughed a little.
"Yes!"
"Good," he said smiling, "Because I already bought you this and it'd be a shame to bring it back."
He leaned over me and pulled a box out the bedside stand.
I laughed and took the ring out.
"It's beautiful," I told him.
"Just like you, babe."