princehonorable | (no subject)

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walter

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He's looking.

The woods are thicker than he recalls, the trees strange and odd. He's searching for someone and he thinks it might be Snow. There has to be a bridge somewhere, but he's yet to find it, which means he's yet to find her. There's someone else that he's looking for, but he doesn't know who it is. He only knows that she's small and vulnerable. She needs someone to protect her and it's supposed to be him.

He wanders, deep through the woods and makes his way out of the dark to the light, entering a strange building and walking until he's in the midst of several rooms -- each one stranger than the last. "I'm looking," he says aloud, as if that will direct him to what he needs to find. "I need to find her."

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"And whom do you need to find, young man?" Walter asked from where sat at his lab station, fiddling with a bit of metal and wire that would, someday, be a contraption used for communicating across dimensional walls.

Or perhaps it was a toaster. One couldn't be sure.

He stares right past him. He's looking for someone in the depths of the woods, but the trees have turned to something harder -- colder. He looks past him and walks slowly in the direction of the nearest open space. She's got to be out here. If he finds her, he can stop her from making a terrible mistake. He can't let her kill the Queen -- he can't let her lose herself.

Well, now. That was interesting.

Putting down the small soldering iron in his hand, he stood, closing the distance between them and trying to put himself within the man's eye line.

What was the boy's name, again? Daniel? Douglas? Danby?

"Damn," muttered Walter to himself, then asked, "Can you tell me where you are? Perhaps I can help you find her."

He finally connects with the sound of a voice, drifting towards him and hears the questions, hears what he has to say. "She didn't recognize my name," he murmurs, absently. "Name she gave me -- Charming, she didn't..." And then he's drifting again, wandering for the door because she's not here and he's looking.

"Charming?" Walter repeated, following the young man toward the door. Having two lost men wandering the island might not have been the best of plans, but Walter couldn't simply leave him to fend for himself in such a state.

As subtly as he could, he tried to see if there was any sign of head injury. Most likely, this was directly connected to the state he'd been in upon arrival.

She doesn't seem to be here. If she's not here, then perhaps she's already committed her grievous error and he's too late. James turns, heading back for the woods. If there's any chance that Snow is out there, he's going to find her and he thinks he knows where he needs to go next. "I need to go to Rumplestiltskin," he says to himself, searching for a sword that's not there...

And that lack of an object startles him.

David blinks and comes back to himself, his attention blurred until he fixates on the man beside him, that he only recognizes from the first time he got lost. "...Hello?"

"Oh, hello. There you are," Walter said, patting the young man on the arm. "How about we find a place to sit while you reorient yourself."

David's still awash with confusion and he stares at Walter, trying to form words or put something together that makes sense, but he's left with nothing but confusion. "What? What's going on? Where am I?" Why isn't he back in the clinic bed where he belongs?

"It's all right, you're in the lab," Walter said, trying to lead him toward a chair.

"You wandered in of your own accord, but you seemed quite disoriented. What's the last you remember?"

"I remember going to sleep. I was exhausted because I went to the Winchester for breakfast," he says, guilty of overextending himself. He lets himself be led into that chair, confused as to why he would just start walking around like that. "What did I do?"

"You claimed to be looking for someone. A woman," Walter explained, "You also mentioned needing to find Rumpelstiltskin."

He supposed one might think that far-fetched, but only if they hadn't been on the island for any time at all.

"I'm quite certain you were not sleepwalking."

"Find...what?" It's the first thing that comes to mind to ask, but his confusion quickly falls away when Dr. Bishop remarks on his possible condition. "I don't understand. If I wasn't sleepwalking, then what was I doing?"

"I believe you were in a kind of dissociative fugue. A bout of short-term amnesia, which isn't at all surprising, given your other symptoms," Walter said, going over to pour the man a glass of water, from the pitcher sitting nearby.

"Can you recall anything at all? Images? Emotions? It doesn't matter how small."

David closes his eyes as tightly as he can, pushing himself to remember what he might have been doing. He gets a sense of...desperation. He feels as though perhaps he's lost something and he needs to get it back. No, not it.

Her. "I think I was looking for a woman."

"Yes, I'm most certain you were. Can you recall a name?" Walter asked, already hoping the boy would be receptive to hypnosis. There was all sorts of things in that mind just waiting to be shaken loose.

He closes his eyes and tries to remember it, but he doesn't find a name. He finds an image of someone he's sure he's seen before, but she looks slightly different. "She's got long brown hair," he speaks slowly. "And skin as white as snow. And she's carrying a bow and arrow. I think she means to kill someone," he says, opening his eyes in a sudden and terrified flash.

"Now, now. Don't get too excited. I'm almost certain, if this is real at all, that you're remembering something that's happened quite some time ago. Unfortunately, if she meant to kill someone, it's a bit too late to intervene."

There was a very, very slim chance the young man was experiencing an event yet to happen, but he didn't want to frighten him with such possibilities.

There's something that catches in his throat that feels akin to petrified terror at the thought that it's too late to save her. It can't be. If he's too late and he loses her, then she'll be lost to him and he'd vowed to always find her. He opens his eyes wider, a small thrill of excitement pushing through him. "I promised to find her. I swore that I would always find her."

"Then you shall. But first, we must do some work to jog that memory of yours. How does that sound?" Walter offered, the man's excitement oddly contagious.

This was a mystery Walter didn't mind at all spending a bit of time trying to solve.

David blinks, slightly stunned at the notion that he's going to do work to figure out why he's acting the way he is. Still, it's not a bad thought -- just, a surprising one. "Yes," he says, suddenly. "Yes. Anything we can do."

"How do you feel about hypnosis?" Walter inquired, already moving toward his lab station. "I don't think I'll need to administer any drugs, though... I suppose I can't ask you if you have any known allergies."

He chuckled.

"If you kill me, just write a note of apology," David replies, trying to keep his mood light. He follows after Walter carefully, already having decided to do whatever they can in order to retrieve memories. "Hypnosis was mentioned by my therapist. I'd like to try it," he insists. "I'd like to try anything I can."

"Whom shall I address the note to?" he asked, absently forgetting that the man likely had no idea.

"Well, you're a bit agitated, now. How about we schedule a time for you to return?"

"If anything happens to me? Mary Margaret," he replies in an instant. "Always her, if even I'm a little bit sick, she's the one who needs to know," he says, feeling that if he can make sure she's his next of kin, he's managed to do something. "We can't start now?" he asks, aware he's starting to get desperate.

"In the state you're in now, I'm afraid you won't be quite as receptive to suggestion. As I said, I could sedate you, but knowing so little about the cause of your amnesia, I'd rather not," Walter said, erring on the side of caution, for once.

"I wouldn't be opposed to trying later today, but I'd like it if you took a few moments. Perhaps got something to eat."

He almost protests again. He practically feels something determined and bound up in his chest pushing him to ask one more time, but he tries to listen to the reason in the words. David takes a steadying breath and nods his head. "If you think that's best," he agrees. "Maybe I'll come back in the afternoon."

And then, he'll have no excuse to stop him from trying to earn back his memories.

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