October 12th 2020
Prompt: Returning Villain

Title is a quote of Quiet from Matilda
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His mind was whirling, thoughts leaving their organized place and trapped in the spinning vortex of the vast expense of his consciousness.

No.

No this couldn't be real.

And yet there she was.

He remembered when he first got the call. The person on the phone had a thick accent he couldn't place so he almost missed it. But he didn't miss that name.

"Harumi was alive."

She was in a coma. Some scientists found her in old ruins of Ninjago. Perhaps someone had found her and kept her alive with dingy home made scraps that they used to create machines to keep her alive. Detectives were struggling to figure out exactly who but there was no evidence. The ruins had been successfully cleared of all except Harumi and the machines attached to her.

Lloyd remembered dropping the phone, it crashing to the ground as he stumbled to put on a coat. The ninja had been eavesdropping over the line, asking him over and over if he was sure this was a good idea.

He wasn't sure.

When he arrived he was taken to her room. There he saw her for the first time. Skin white like porcelain. Hair messy and strewn across her pillow. The steady beeping of the machines lighting the heavy silence of the room. He had stayed there for ten days before anything happened. Arriving early in the morning and leaving late at night. Some days he'd fall asleep in the uncomfortable chair by her bedside.

  On the eleventh day when she began to move. Small things like the twitch of her eye lids, the small curling of her hand in the sheets. Then on day twelve her eyes opened. He had been slumped in the chair. Trying to look through police reports so he wasn't totally abandoning his responsibilities. Suddenly, he became aware of her movement. She let out a yelp as she opened her eyes.

"Hey, just a moment." Lloyd said anxiously as panic filled him. "I'll call the nurse, just hold on."

  All thoughts screamed at him as his body numbly dimmed the lights and slammed the button. She's awake, she's awake, she's awake. The words repeating over and over in his head. Would she try and kill him again? Would she have the same regret in her eyes as he watched the building beneath her crumble?

Lloyd grabbed the styrofoam cup on the table. He had been unconscious many times and he knows how dry a mouth can get when all you've been doing is breathing from it for months. He gently placed it on her lips and let her drink as her eyes opened and focused on him. Recognition formed in her eyes but her brow furrowed as it did. They seemed to stare into Lloyd like they were reading emotions he couldn't even translate. What did she see? The sadness? The anger? The overwhelming urge to strangle her for all the fear? The underlying feeling of love that still laid beneath all those layers of pain?

  She blinked, licking her lips, the movement causing the stray white hairs in her face to flutter as she opened her mouth to speak. Her words were soft, hoarse from disuse, her face confused and almost sad as words formed on her lips.

  "Have we met before?"

  No.

  Lloyd wasn't sure why that hit him so hard but as the doctors and nurses raced in, shouting him aside as they yelled orders and checked the machines. She cried out in fear as they asked her questions, more people entering, pushing Lloyd farther and farther until the door was shut in his face. He stared numbly at the small bit of glass that made a misty window in the wood. Watching them talk to her carefully.

  She had amnesia.

  Everything.

  All the pain.

  All the fear.

  All the anger.

  ... all the love.

  Was gone. Wiped from her mind. That was the breaking point for Lloyd. He had held strong for so long. As he watched over her. As he got that stupid call. But the fact that she forgot everything they went through.

  People jumped to their feet, their mouths moving in scared concern as the green ninja crumbled to his knees and cried for the very first time since she betrayed him.