Drowning Lessons

We were all so busy looking at Gerard no one noticed the grown man crawling around the room. He sits in one corner and starts crying. We all turn around and see the Captain bawling his eyes out. The sound is shrill and loud, like a baby’s. Oh my fucking god I think Gerard had taken every memory he had back to being a baby… I furrow my brow looking over at him. Andy walks over to him and whispers “shut the fuck up.”
The Captain goes silent staring up at Andy through tear-filled eyes.
Alex leaves the room and comes back with Ryan in arms, passed out from the exhaustion of his task. He lays Ryan down beside gee and the rips his shirt off to use as another cloth to soak Gee’s blood.
The room is a bright grey when I hear footsteps in the hall. Jaime and Andy are on their feet and ready to attack with nothing…
“Vic!” a high pitched voice cries and the shape of a small feminine dude rushes past the door. The guys are back from “Chick Island”.
Brendon and Bob stumble into the room followed by Ray and Ashley and a half a dozen girls all looking vaguely traumatized. Probably the fault of the corpse littered corridor.
“Is that Ryan?” Brendon croaks rushing over to us.
“It is but he’s alive. Just worn out from using his powers so much. And he’s been badly burnt,” Mikey says.
Brendon kneels down next to Ryan and stares down onto his sleeping face.
“Is that the Captain?” Bob grumbles and everyone’s attention turns the man crying and rocking in the corner.
“Yea…” Jaime says, “Gerard stole all his memories back to him being a baby.”
“Where is Gerard?” Ray says. Mikey and I lean back giving the newcomers a clear view of Gerard lying down out cold.
“Oh shit,” Bob and Ray murmur and they join us by his side. “Is he… alive?” Bob asks at last.
“For now,” Mikey says gravely.
“What’s wrong with him?” A blonde girl with a nose ring asks from the back of the group of girls.
“He’s broken limbs… Lost a lot of blood… Is concussed… His head is split open…” My voice betrays me. The more I try to calm it the wobblier it gets and the last sentence was probably intelligible.
“I can close the wounds and set the bones but for the loss of consciousness and blood I can’t really do anything,” she says stepping through the others.
We beckon her over and she takes my place by Gee. She runs a finger along his forehead over and over, caressing the wound. Slowly it begins to close over and heal a little. The bleeding from his head has stopped a while but he still has lost a lot of blood. The girl rests her palms on his temple and the back of his head and when she lifts them I see that the fibres of the skin are knitting back together. I would say it looks fucking wrong but after last night everything looks slightly more right.
She moves her hands to his arm and bends it back in the right direction. “My name is Jenna,” she says holding his arm in place. After a few seconds we hear a disturbing grinding noise and then something with the texture of silk. After about a minute Jenna moves around and fixes his ankle in place.
We are all quiet and scrutinizing Jenna’s work. The group of girls had slowly and awkwardly sat down. They were all clothed in black rags. Every item was actually made for a guy so it was too loose or tight on everyone. They all looked thin and tired. It only just hit me that Ashley is amongst them.
Just as Jenna goes to heal Ryan’s wounds Kellin comes stumbling in, face tear streaked and eyes red. He walks straight from the double door frame to the Captain sitting, sulking in a corner.
“Kellin…” Jaime warns but Kellin takes no heed and reaches down to the Captain dragging him out of the corner. In the middle of the room he begins to kick the shit out of him. The Captain starts crying loud and shrill like a baby. Kellin gets two or three kicks in before Andy’s dragging him away.
“He killed Vic!” Kellin wails thrashing against Andy’s arms. Andy is over a head taller than Kellin in this form and a hell of a lot stronger.
“I know Kellin, I know I saw,” Andy holds him and tries to calm him. Within seconds the room had gone from silent mourning to shrieks, cries and whispers. Jenna is finished healing the wounds and goes over to sit with the girls. After a lot of struggling Kellin goes limp and falls to the floor, sobbing softly. We all go silent again.

It’s about midday when Ryan wakes up. He sits up straight, insisting that he’s okay now. Brendon and Ryan sit tight together, not really caring that people can see. Something tells me everyone new already.
“I’m hungry,” Jaime says after a while. “Who wants to help me bring food up here or get the bodies down stairs?” Everyone winces at the word bodies.
Mikey, Bob, Ray, Alex and I stay while the rest attempt to get downstairs. Apparently the floor is unstable thanks to all the fire. Jaime apologises for not picking up the fire but the heat of the battle was too distracting. We all excuse his shitty pun.
Gerard sleeps so peacefully. His breaths are shaky but even, his heart beats, however, are not. He looks pale and fragile and I just wish he’d fucking wake up.
“What will we do with the Captain?” Alex asks, gesturing to the man baby in the corner, taking a nap. He still has creepy bullet wounds in his stomach.
I shake my head, “I have no idea. We can’t kill him.”
“Why not?”
“Because it would be like killing a baby. Plus I think he has enough of your powers Mikey that he can’t be killed,” I furrow my brow, “We could put him in an institute?”
“Yea lets,” Ray says, “He’ll need constant watching so that he doesn’t burn houses down and stuff.”
We all nod in agreement.
The day is slipping away and I’m beginning to feel hungry. I wish the others would return with food already.
I’m leaning into Mikey and staring out the shattered windows when I hear the first groan.
All of our attention is caught and simultaneously our heads snap down. Gerard’s parted lips twitch. Another groan.
“Gee? You okay Gee?” Mikey says calmly even though his whole body is shaking. I get why, when he wakes Gerard is going to have every memory the Captain ever did as if they were his own and that’s bound to fuck with a person’s head.
Gerard’s mouth twitches again and his eyes move behind their lids. Suddenly everyone’s sitting up straighter, alert and ready to do something. Not sure what that is but when the time comes we’ll be ready.
“Frankie…” a groan comes from somewhere buried deep in his throat.
“I’m here Gee,” I’m not sure what else to say.
“I know Frank, I dreamt about you…” His eyelids flutter but don’t remain closed. His fingers close and open.
“I’m tired,” he groans, “and I feel weird.”
“Want to sit up, bro?” Mikey asks. Gee nods and squints his eyes once before opening them.
“What the fuck…” he mumbles staring directly up at the ceiling. He pulls himself up to sitting and stares out the window. “What the fuck…” he repeats.
“What?” we all chirp. The general mood has lifted since Gee proved to be alive.
“I can see,” he says shocked.
“You were never blind…” Bob replies, confused.
“No, no, not blind but like normal eyesight. Now I can see far.”
Everyone’s face drops and search parties will have to set off to find Ray’s eyebrows which have risen into his hair.
“Can you hear our thoughts?” Alex asks, seemingly okay with Gerard having his power.
Gerard furrows his brow and looks contemplative for a minute. “Yes… Oh… Yes, yes I can.”
We all exchange looks. “Gerard, what do you remember…? I mean do you remember everything that’s happened to the Captain?” I ask looking him in the eye.
His face drops. “I’m so confused now…”
“What?” we chorus.
“I’m so confused, I remember you like me Frankie as much as I liked you and I remember you hating me and I remember you liking me and I didn’t like you… What is real?”
“You took all the Captain’s memories,” Mikey explains.
“I’m Gerard Way…” we nod, “so… uh… that memories mine, and that’s not?” two images pop up at the same time, one of him shooting the white coat and one of him electrocuting Vic. I shudder, both are so graphic.
“Yes,” Ray says, his voice wobbly.
Before we could say more the rest of our company pile in with armfuls of food.
“You’re awake!” Brendon smiles.
Gee nods and then squints. “It’s so busy…” he mumbles. “So many thoughts…”
Kellin’s head shoots up. “When he took the Captain’s memories he took his abilities too or something,” Alex explains.
“I just took whatever I could,” Gerard explains.
Everyone looks kind of uncomfortable for a while, then we start to eat.

We decide to leave the island that day. Everyone just gathered up what they thought would be anyway useful. We buried Vic in an old creepy graveyard in the woods where the previous owners of the island rest. Mikey had stumbled across it when he first arrived. The rest of the bodies were dragged cremated in the gardens and their ashes were spread through the wind. The white coats who were still alive agreed not to try anything in return for not being cremated. Logical.
We’re all on the ferry that was used to carry food and people I think. We’re off to “Chick Island” to gather everyone else and then head to mainland America.
I’m standing at the railing looking out at the island, so beautiful it would be if it weren’t for all the shit that’s happened there.
As we begin to leave the dock Gerard walks over to me, “I haven’t lived out there in two years. I have no life where we’re going now. And with all this extra power… I guess life won’t have any aspect of normality will it?”
“You can live with me,” I find myself saying. The island starts shrinking now. All I can see is a lump of earth blocking my view of the pink sky. “Anyway you’ll never be fucking normal because nobody is fucking normal.”

Notes

I can't believe I finished it... It just felt like the story ruled my life and i dunno I think I'll go write a new fic :3 Thank you soooooo much for reading and rating ^-^ let me know what you think and I hope it wasn't too crappy :) xxx